Classic Espresso Bites, our edible coffee, was just announced a 2022 Good Food Awards winner! In a blind tasting, judges evaluated nearly 2000 national entries and selected winners across 18 categories. Espresso Bites won in the category of Confections!
The Good Food Awards is an annual celebration of sustainable, high-quality food and beverage products.
We're deeply honored and thrilled to join fellow winning artisans in San Francisco for the upcoming awards ceremony, including a handful of craftspeople and friends from Hawaii!
To mark the winners' announcement, chef Alice Waters sent congratulatory videos speaking to the sustainability and social responsibility practices of the winners, “I believe it is our collective efforts that can turn the tide and ensure our shared earth will survive. You are the champions of the future, and you are leading the way.”
For the Confections category, the Good Food Awards recognizes products made using locally grown, natural, minimally processed ingredients that celebrate regional culture and tradition, highlight American terroir, and exemplify excellent flavors in the candy-making craft.
Our team has worked diligently with the vision of making authentic Hawaii-grown coffee a special experience accessible to coffee lovers outside of Hawaii. Classic Espresso Bites is the result of us creatively riffing on that vision and introducing new ways that our local coffees can be delivered and enjoyed.
What are the Good Food Awards?
The Good Food Awards are organized by the Good Food Foundation, which seeks to highlight and celebrate the work of food and beverage brands in the US.
The foundation began as the Seedlings Project in 2010, before being officially established in 2016. Today, its mission is to encourage the development of sustainable and regenerative food supply chains, while also maintaining a focus on quality.
As part of their work, the foundation organizes a number of projects, including the annual Good Food Awards. These celebrate excellence in food quality and sustainability in the US, including for coffee and confectionery. Although our edible Espresso Bites contain coffee, we entered our bars in the confections category.
When submitting a product, there are strict criteria to follow which ensure only the highest quality food and beverages are entered.
For the confections category, products must be made from locally-sourced natural ingredients with minimal processing. This ensures that confectionery (whether they are chocolate, candy, caramels, sauces, spreads, or candied fruit) is of the highest quality.
Additionally, the products should ideally celebrate regional heritage and tradition – which includes acknowledging the significance of culturally-specific ingredients.
Finally, The Good Food Awards also require entrants to commit to social responsibility programs, such as inclusive hiring and training practices.
The winning product: Our Classic Espresso Bites
We were one of less than a dozen Hawaiian finalists at the 2022 Good Food Awards and were delighted to win in the confections category for our Classic Espresso Bites.
“We are humbled and ecstatic to be recognized with this award,” says our co-founder Kelleigh. “Our team has worked diligently, with the vision of making authentic Hawaii-grown coffee a special experience and accessible to coffee lovers across the globe.”
Our edible coffee Espresso Bites are smooth and creamy and can be enjoyed by the bite, or mixed with hot water or hot milk to create a delicious coffee beverage.
Each bar contains the equivalent of two to three shots of espresso, made with 100% Hawaiian coffee, as well as five other natural and organic ingredients.
“Our Espresso Bites are the result of us creatively ‘riffing’ on that vision and introducing new ways that locally-grown coffee can be delivered globally,” Kelleigh adds.
Our award-winning Classic Espresso Bites are made from 100% Ka’u coffee, organic cocoa butter, organic cane sugar, sea salt, vanilla bean, and non-GMO sunflower lecithin.
This also means that even though they are deliciously creamy, our Classic Espresso Bites are 100% vegan.
After developing them for a couple of years, we were named the 2018 winner of the HIplan Hawai‘i Island Business Plan Competition at the University of Hawaii. Kelleigh and her husband Brandon also received the HIplan Competition’s Grand Prize of $25,000.
Awarding-winning edible coffee
As well as being a 2022 Good Food Awards winner, our Espresso Bites range was included in Honolulu Magazine’s Staff Picks Hawai‘i Favorites in April 2020, as well as being rated as the Top Candy Find of the Year in 2018. Furthermore, the news show Good Morning America also featured our edible coffee bites on its new product segment, showcasing the full range.
As well as our Classic flavor, Espresso Bites are also available in Sea Salt and Latte flavors.
Our Sea Salt Espresso Bites are made using 100% Maui coffee and mineral-rich sea salt from Molokai. A little salty and a little sweet, this edible coffee has notes of caramel and nuts.
In addition, our Latte Espresso Bites are also made using 100% Hawaiian coffee, as well as organic milk, which results in notes of milk chocolate, coffee, and roasted nuts.
The Classic, Sea Salt, and Latte Espresso Bites are all available in packs of three or six, as well as sleeves of 18 bars. They’re currently sold at US retailers in Hawaii, Washington, Oregon, California, Nevada, and Arizona – including Whole Foods, Capers (PDX airport), Zupans, and Market of Choice. A list of additional retailers can be found here.
The 2022 Good Food Awards ceremony will be held from March 4 to 6 in San Francisco. If you are interested in joining us and celebrating our win, you can get tickets here. We hope to see you there, and thank you for supporting us on this journey!
