we're sorry that we won't be dispatching any orders until temperatures are below 25 degrees. thanks for your patience!

blog

Amazing flavour, and a beautiful backstory: our Brazil Nut Praline Bar

If you haven’t given it a try yet, we’ve joined forces with Hodmedod’s to create a product that we’re thrilled to share with you. This is an exciting new fusion of vegan and ethically sourced ingredients, combined to make one delicious new treat.

After some extensive recipe development and lots of taste testing (our job is so terrible sometimes!) we’ve created the new Brazil Nut Praline Bar together. Not only is it a soft, creamy, and harmonious blend of flavour, it’s also filled with purpose and amazing heritage too. Hopefully you’ve already read our most recent blog post about these amazing Brazil Nuts. But let’s tell you a little bit more…

the legacy of the kayapó

The Landworkers’ Alliance, Roddick Foundation, Hodmedod and Kayapó-led cooperative COOBA-Y have come together to build a new direct trade relationship in solidarity with the Indigenous fight for survival, bringing wild-harvested nuts directly from the Kayapó people of Brazil to the UK for the first time.

The Kayapó people have lived in harmony with the Amazon for generations, safeguarding 9 million hectares of this vital rainforest. For the Kayapó people, the Brazil nut is an important source of food and every year they travel through the forest to collect pods from under the trees. The seeds are removed deftly with machetes, collected in baskets and carried back to the villages. The collection journeys and weeks spent at the Brazil nut groves are an important cultural event for the Kayapó; knowledge is shared between generations, families hunt and pick fruit, plants are gathered for traditional medicines and materials collected for crafting tools, utensils and ornaments.

In the struggle for their right to exist and steward their territory, the Kayapó formed 21st-century alliances with conservation organisations. These support networks strengthen the Kayapó with tools for territorial surveillance and sustainable economic autonomy – and also give them an international platform. It allows them to continue to build cultural resilience through the transfer of traditional knowledge and practices.

Income from nut sales are equitably distributed between 4000 Kayapó people from 50 Kayapó villages. It means that, together, these villages can continue to protect over 9 million hectares of forest.

Hodmedod’s direct relationship with the Kayapó people allows for shared values, equity and transparency across the Atlantic. It also allows for more people to learn the story of the Kayapó and the forest that they live to preserve.

And, we hope that that’s what this Brazil Nut Praline Bar is able to do too: to continue the story of this culture, to allow more people to learn about the Kayapó and to strengthen the harmonic relationships that the Kayapó-led collectives now share with their UK partners.

how we bring these brazil nuts to life

To complement this treasured heritage, we’ve combined these Brazil nuts with the finest vegan and organic ingredients. Alongside organically and ethically sourced coconut sugar, lucuma powder, and vanilla is a truly special cocoa bean from the Dominican Republic. ‘Zorzal’ is a richy, fruity cocoa bean that allows the deep flavours of the Brazil nut to thrive in this praline.

Zorzal cacao is more than just a fine-flavoured bean. Grown in and around the Reserva Zorzal, a private, bird-centred nature reserve in the northern highlands of the Dominican Republic, this cacao supports a conservation model where agriculture and reforestation go hand-in-hand. Farmers work alongside ecologists to preserve biodiversity, protect endangered migratory birds, and restore native forests – all while producing some of the world’s most vibrant and flavour-rich cacao. This unique approach, blending agroforestry and scientific conservation, is part of what makes Zorzal cacao so special.

To bring this amazing praline to life, we start by stone grinding Kayapó Brazil nuts for 72 hours with the Zorzal cacao, coconut sugar, cocoa butter and a soft touch of lucuma powder. The result is a silky-smooth filling with earthy depth and a delicate natural sweetness. Once set and cut into squares, each piece is carefully hand-dipped into our dark 80% Zorzal couverture. It’s a bold yet balanced chocolate that mirrors the richness of the land it comes from.

The Brazil Nut Praline bar is available now, both on our website and on the Hodmedod’s website.

We’re truly honoured to be involved in this collaboration, and we can’t wait for you to try it too.