On 10 June 2025, Aeon put a cocoa-free biscuit on shelf in about 2,200 stores. The chocolate-like coating was ChoViva, made by a German startup, Planet A Foods, from sunflower seeds. Aeon’s release called it Japan’s first product using the ingredient, and Planet A called Japan its first market outside Europe.
On 15 September 2026, the same retailer began rolling three more cocoa-free products into about 3,500 stores. This time the ingredient is Anoza M, a pea-and-carob compound made by Fuji Oil, a Japanese fats and industrial-chocolate manufacturer that has been selling cocoa-butter substitutes since 1955. Anoza M is sold only to manufacturers, in 10 kg cases and 1 kg bags.
The startup’s products stay on shelf. Aeon says the series has passed roughly 1.8 million units. But the sequence is the point of this piece. In fifteen months the retailer went from a launch that needed an imported startup ingredient to an extension built on a domestic incumbent’s product. The same shape is visible elsewhere in the category in the same year: Voyage Foods has made Cargill its exclusive global B2B distributor and withdrawn from retail; Döhler has bought Nukoko outright; Planet A itself has signed a long-term commercial partnership with Barry Callebaut. Cocoa-free chocolate is becoming an ingredient that reaches manufacturers through the channels cocoa already uses.
For anyone selling a novel ingredient into confectionery, that is the operating lesson: the buyer’s existing fat and chocolate supplier is both your distributor and your fastest follower.
What Aeon actually listed, and at what price
Aeon publishes prices, weights and store counts in its releases, which makes the two launches directly comparable on the terms the retailer chose. A note on sourcing: the Aeon, Fuji Oil and Foovo documents are in Japanese, and every quotation from them in this piece is our translation; quotations from Planet A, Barry Callebaut, Cargill, Döhler and Green Queen are verbatim.
| Launch | Ingredient (maker) | Products | Pack | Price (ex tax) | Stores | Source |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 10 June 2025 | ChoViva (Planet A Foods) | Chocoka? With Biscuit | 143 g (about 12 pieces) | ¥398 | about 2,200 | Aeon release, 10 June 2025 |
| September 2025 | ChoViva (Planet A Foods) | Plain, Hazelnut, Cereal Puff blocks | not stated in the 2026 release | not stated in the 2026 release | not stated | Aeon release, 27 Aug 2026; Planet A release, 17 Sept 2025 |
| 15 Sept 2026 | Anoza M (Fuji Oil) | Pistachio & Snack | 78 g | ¥498 | about 3,500 | Aeon release, 27 Aug 2026 |
| 15 Sept 2026 | Anoza M (Fuji Oil) | Caramelised Almond | 50 g | ¥298 | about 3,500 | Aeon release, 27 Aug 2026 |
| 15 Sept 2026 | Anoza M (Fuji Oil) | Cranberry Crunch | 54 g | ¥258 | about 3,500 | Aeon release, 27 Aug 2026 |
Three things are worth reading off the table.
First, the 2025 launch was explicitly limited: “数量限定” (limited quantity), one SKU, 2,200 stores. The 2026 extension is three SKUs across 3,500 stores, described as a lineup expansion. Aeon’s own framing in the 2026 release is that ChoViva was “the first” cocoa-free ingredient and Anoza M is “a new raw material” being added to the series.
Second, the products are not comparable per gram. A 143 g biscuit pack at ¥398 is about ¥2.8 per gram; a 78 g pistachio snack at ¥498 is about ¥6.4 per gram. But one is a coated biscuit and the other is nut-heavy confectionery, so the difference is the inclusions, not the coating. We have not found a like-for-like conventional-chocolate Topvalu SKU with which to benchmark the cocoa-free premium, and we are not going to infer one.
Third, the 1.8 million cumulative units Aeon cites are for the ChoViva products only, because nothing else had been sold when the figure was stated. Aeon does not break the figure down by SKU or period, and it does not state revenue.
Practical consequence: if you are pitching a cocoa-free ingredient to a private-label buyer, the first listing is a test, and the retailer will publish enough about it for competitors to size the opportunity. Assume the incumbent supplier is reading the same release.
Two ingredients, two supply positions
The ingredients differ in raw material, but the more important difference is who makes them and how they are sold.
| ChoViva | Anoza M | |
|---|---|---|
| Maker | Planet A Foods (Planegg, Germany; founded 2021; 75 staff) | Fuji Oil Co., Ltd. (Izumisano, Osaka) |
| Base | Sunflower seeds, fermented and roasted, plus sugar and plant-based fats | Pea, carob (locust bean) and “chocolate-use fats” |
| Positioning | “Chocolate alternative”; consumer-facing ChoViva logo on partner packaging | Milk-chocolate-type industrial product; “can be handled the same way as milk chocolate” |
| Format sold | Ingredient to brands and retailers; over 70 products in eight countries; over 60,000 supermarkets (Planet A, Nov 2025) | B2B only; 10 kg cases and 1 kg × 6 bags |
| Stated scale | “more than 10,000 tons annually” (company homepage) | not stated |
| Production | Own facility in Pilsen, Czech Republic | not stated in the release |
| Downstream partner | Barry Callebaut, long-term commercial partnership (Nov 2025) | Fuji Oil is itself the industrial-chocolate supplier |
| Product launch | Rolled out in seven European countries before Japan; Japan June 2025 | Announced 12 March 2025 |
The ordering of dates matters. Fuji Oil announced Anoza M on 12 March 2025, three months before Aeon’s ChoViva launch. Aeon still chose the imported startup ingredient for its first cocoa-free listing. Whatever the reason, by the time of the extension the retailer had a domestic B2B supplier with a product already in commercial use: Foovo reports that Anoza M was used by several chocolate brands, including Maison Chaudun, in Takashimaya’s 2026 Valentine’s Day event.
Fuji Oil’s release also states what the product is for. It describes Anoza M as a way to “save on the use of cocoa-derived raw materials” and says customers can replace part of the chocolate they currently use without loss of taste. That is a cost-management product positioned for partial substitution in baked goods and confectionery, sold by a company whose core business is the fats that compound chocolate already uses.
Practical consequence: a startup ingredient can win the first listing on novelty and a story. The follow-on volume goes to whoever already has the buyer’s fat specification, the 10 kg case and the sales relationship. If you do not have those, you need a partner who does.
Neither ingredient replaces cocoa butter
Both products are described as containing fats other than cocoa butter. ChoViva is “combined with sugar and plant-based fats”. Anoza M uses “chocolate-use fats”, which is Fuji Oil’s own category. Planet A lists a cocoa butter alternative in its portfolio and describes it as “currently in development”.
This is the formulation constraint the category rarely states plainly. Cocoa-free chocolate, as sold today, replaces the flavour and colour contribution of cocoa solids. It does not replace the fat phase. The fat phase in these products is the same family of vegetable fats used in compound coatings, which is the business Fuji Oil has been in for seventy years and the business in which Barry Callebaut and Cargill also operate. That is why the incumbents are natural distributors: the product slots into their existing coatings portfolio rather than displacing it.
It also explains the application lists. Cargill positions NextCoa for “inclusions in bars, baked goods and ice cream to coatings for snacks and confectionery treats like truffles”. Döhler names bakery, cereals, ice cream, coatings and fillings for the Nukoko platform. Aeon’s Anoza M products are all coated inclusions: pistachio snack, caramelised almond, cranberry and feuilletine. None of these is a tempered solid bar.
Practical consequence: when a cocoa-free supplier quotes a cocoa saving, ask which fraction of the recipe it displaces. If the product substitutes for milk-chocolate compound in a coating, the saving is on cocoa mass and powder, and the fat cost is unchanged.
The distribution deals of 2026
Aeon is one retailer. The pattern across the category in the past twelve months is what makes the sequence meaningful.
| Date | Startup | Incumbent | Structure | What was disclosed |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| April 2024 (agreement); 12 May 2026 (North America launch) | Voyage Foods (US) | Cargill | Cargill is “the exclusive global business-to-business distributor for Voyage Foods”; US supply via Batory Foods, Blendtek and Gillco Ingredients | Product formats and claims; no volumes, prices or term |
| 5 Nov 2025 | Planet A Foods (Germany) | Barry Callebaut | “Commercial long-term partnership”; joint presence in Europe, expansion “towards a truly global footprint” | Described by Planet A’s CEO as an “equal partnership”; no volumes, exclusivity or term |
| 18 June 2026 | Nukoko (UK) | Döhler | Acquisition, following a 2024 scale-up partnership | Price not disclosed; samples “from August 2026” |
| 15 Sept 2026 | none | Fuji Oil (in-house) | Own product, sold direct to the retailer | Pack sizes; no volumes or prices |
Three routes, one destination. Voyage handed its channel to a distributor and has now, per its founder, “pulled out from retail because it wasn’t our long-term vision”. Nukoko sold the company. Planet A kept independence but tied its scale-up to the world’s largest industrial chocolate maker. Fuji Oil skipped the startup step entirely.
For readers who followed our analysis of offtake agreements in alternative protein, the disclosure pattern will be familiar. None of the three deals states a volume commitment, a price or a term. “Exclusive global distributor” tells you who sells; it does not tell you how much anyone has agreed to buy.
Two capacity figures are on the record, and they happen to match. Voyage’s Mason, Ohio plant was described in October 2024 as having a capacity of 10,000 metric tons of cocoa-free chocolate a year “once fully established”; the founder told Green Queen in September 2026 that the plant has been “fully operational since Q4 2025”. Planet A’s homepage says ChoViva is “already produced at scale with more than 10,000 tons annually”. Neither company discloses utilisation, and neither number is a sales figure.
Practical consequence: for an investor in a cocoa-free ingredient company, the distribution announcement is not the offtake. Ask for the minimum purchase commitment, if any, and for the exclusivity terms, because an exclusive global distributor who is also a cocoa trader has options you do not.
The counter-argument: this is what success looks like
There is a reasonable reading of all this that is the opposite of a warning. The startups set out to make an ingredient for the mass market. The mass market buys through Cargill, Barry Callebaut, Döhler and, in Japan, Fuji Oil. A startup that lands one of those as a channel partner has done the hard thing. Planet A’s CEO said the goal “has always been to scale ChoViva into a global ingredient platform” and that the Barry Callebaut partnership “helps us do just that”. Voyage’s founder described the retail brand as a way “to demonstrate our products can scale rapidly” before the B2B business took over.
On this reading, Aeon’s addition of Anoza M is a sign that the category the startup opened is now large enough to attract the incumbent, and the startup’s products stay on shelf alongside.
Both readings are true at once. The category is real, and the incumbents now control most of the routes into it. The question for a founder or investor is what the startup owns that the incumbent cannot replicate in fifteen months. For Planet A that is a stated 10,000 tonne fermentation platform and a partner with more than 60 plants. For Voyage it is a 284,000 square foot facility and a patent portfolio that Cargill’s release names. For a company at sample stage with no plant, the honest answer may be that the exit is the Nukoko route.
The one cocoa-free startup wind-down we can find on the record fits that description. Foovo reported on 9 September 2026 that Motai Group, a Netherlands-based company founded in 2025 to make a cocoa alternative from cupuaçu seeds, has entered liquidation after what its co-founder described as fundamental differences between the founders on direction. It had been targeting a Q2 2026 market launch. Foovo notes it could find no other cocoa-alternative startup that had publicly entered liquidation.
What we could not establish
- Whether Aeon changed supplier for any existing ChoViva SKU. The 2026 release says ChoViva products “continue to be sold”. We have not verified in-store availability of the September 2025 blocks.
- Prices and weights of the three September 2025 ChoViva blocks. The 2026 release names the SKUs but restates no prices; we have not used the figure Foovo reported for them.
- Where Anoza M is manufactured, and at what scale. Fuji Oil’s release gives pack sizes only.
- Any volume, price or term in the Cargill–Voyage, Barry Callebaut–Planet A or Döhler–Nukoko agreements. None was disclosed.
- The Döhler–Nukoko purchase price. Not disclosed.
- Utilisation of either 10,000 tonne capacity figure. Neither Voyage nor Planet A discloses output or sales.
- The reason Aeon chose an imported ingredient for its first launch when a domestic B2B product had been announced three months earlier. Neither Aeon nor Fuji Oil has said.
- Motai Group’s funding position at closure. Its co-founder’s post did not address it, and we have relied on Foovo’s account of that post.
What to watch
- Whether Aeon adds a third ingredient or consolidates on one. The 2026 release describes the series as one that now uses different cocoa alternatives by product. A future release that drops one supplier would be the clearest signal of which position wins.
- Fuji Oil’s next disclosure on Anoza M. A stated production volume, a named overseas customer or a listing outside Japan would move it from a domestic hedge to a competitor for the startups’ export markets.
- Barry Callebaut’s first branded ChoViva-based product line and whether the partnership’s terms are ever described. The November 2025 release promised joint expansion; the test is a product with a Barry Callebaut customer name on it.
- Voyage Foods’ next financing. The founder declined to discuss runway. A round or a strategic transaction in the next twelve months would say whether B2B-only through one exclusive distributor is a sustainable structure or a waypoint.
- Döhler’s Nukoko samples. Promised from August 2026. A first commercial product would confirm that the acquisition route delivers a product to market faster than the partnership route.