Chocorama is gluten free Milo
Posted: August 9, 2024 Updated: August 21, 2024
As soon as I heard about Chocorama gluten free Milo in a Happy Tummies newsletter I knew right away I had to try it. I wrote straight back to the email saying “no waaaaaay!”
As may or may not know, I am an ambassador for Happy Tummies. What does it mean? Well, a few things. If I share product links to the Happy Tummies website I may earn a commission on sales (at no extra cost to you). This is great because I don’t make much money doing this gig, so even enough for a coffee is a huge impact.
The other thing being an ambassador allows me to do is try out new products that Happy Tummies stock. I have chats with the owner Lisa about what I’m seeing coeliac and gluten free people missing on my Facebook and Instagram pages.
From there we decide on some products for me to sample, review and share with my audience. It’s a great system and it’s really helping me in my gluten free swaps series (check out the first article!).
Pricing on gluten free Milo alternatives
I know I’ll get a comment on Facebook or Instagram about the price so I thought I’d do a little cost analysis here at 1am while I’m writing this up. Yes 1am, this is how a full time mother who is also a full time blogger works 😅.
Milo which is not gluten free is $5 for 200g. It’s made by a multinational company (Nestle) in a huge factory and has the same recipe for 50+ years. It’s allergens are barley (gluten), milk and soy.
The three Milo alternatives off the top of my head that are gluten free are
Chocorama, Crum and Pana Organic’s Coco Crunch.
Two are made by small businesses and one by a larger company but all would have spent countless hours and weeks developing a strictly gluten free product, buying gluten free ingredients, testing it for gluten, hand packing it, and marketing it – all on a small, fixed budget.
Doing these activities as a small business is of course much more expensive.
They each cost Chocorama ($16.95), Crum ($22.50) and Pana ($9.50 when I bought it in 2022).
Now here’s the thing, Pana Organic no longer makes Coco Crunch. Crum is still available, but going by recent social media posts the Crum business is for sale, so it may not be around for long.
What I’m trying to say is, there’s really not much on the market, so we need to do our best to support what we’ve got or it won’t stay around.
Even myself as a full time blogger, find it hard at times to justify what I’m doing when I’m basically working for a few dollars an hour.
But, every small business owner is super passionate about what they do, and it’s what keeps us (and myself) going! 😊
Ingredients in Chocorama, gluten free Milo
Chocorama is so simple in it’s ingredients. It’s got organic coconut sugar, organic cacao and natural vanilla extra powder (infused fresh vanilla pods, maltodextrin, water).
There’s no allergens, no may contains. It’s made in the Happy Tummies council approved allergen free facility so you can be assured that as well as being gluten free (they test it) it’s also dairy and soy free. And of course it’s vegan.
This makes it much more accessible than Milo which contains gluten, dairy and soy.
The taste
When it comes to a dupe product of something that is jam-packed full of gluten it makes my job as a review much much more difficult. I’ve been eating a gluten free diet for close to fifteen years, so I worry sometimes if I can really trust my memories of products.
In these situations I’ll bring in an expert gluten-eating reviewer, usually my husband (close by, not the most discerning palate) or my best mate (trained wine expert, excellent palate).
I would have recruited my bestie for this analysis but… she hates chocolate! She’s also lactose intolerant so yeah, this one wasn’t going to happen. Stay tuned though, we’ll be reviewing some other Happy Tummies products together in the coming weeks.
O.G Milo versus to gluten free alternatives
We’ve set up Milo, Coco Crunch and Chocorama. The Coco Crunch isn’t available these days but I figured a few of you would have tried it so it’s a useful comparison.
In terms of consistency as a powder, Milo and Chocorama look the same. In the photo above, Coco Crunch is up the top, Chocorama on the left and Milo on the right. Milo and Chocorama both have a fine crumb whereas the Coco Crunch has both fine and larger chunks.
Why won’t they dissolve?!
Chocorama has that same “I’m refusing to dissolve into your milk” attitude that Milo has. It’s probably my favourite thing about Milo.
With any other product this would be seen as a negative but obviously we all love eating the undissolved Milo with a spoon at the end (or the start 😅). It’s a great attention to detail from Free From Family Co (Happy Tummies’ food brand).
When it came to texture (we ate it off the top with a spoon) Chocorama and Milo were the same. They both had an identical crunch and mouth feel. The Coco Crunch had a harder texture, with bits sticking to my teeth. It’s also got a much more bitter chocolate taste than Chocorama. My husband said the Coco Crunch isn’t very enjoyable to eat.
After that we tried the actual milk. For me, trying just the Coco Crunch and the Chocorama, the latter was the clear winner. The chocolate flavour did come into the milk, not a huge amount (like I’d expect with say, Nesquik) though.
For my husband, trying all three, his favourite was Chocorama! He said there was something extra in the Milo that he didn’t enjoy.
He also noted that he didn’t like the smell of the Milo, saying there was a bit of a “stale bread” smell to it. Weird! I gave it a whiff and I can agree.
Serving size
The serving seems accurate on the label. 10g is two teaspoons and was a good amount when I did a full glass of milk.
I also tried it on top of ice cream (one of my preferred ways to eat gluten free Milo). For that I used less than one teaspoon to cover my two scoops and it was great!
Crunchy chocolate texture plus creamy ice cream is a great combination. If you haven’t tried it before I highly recommend it.
Where to buy Chocorama gluten free Milo
Chocorama is exclusively available from Happy Tummies. Free From Family Co is their own brand and they spent countless hours developing this gluten free Milo dupe.
You can purchase it here via my affiliate link. I earn a tiny commission on purchases which helps me fund bringing you more reviews just like this one.
Please make sure you use the link when you’re making a purchase with Happy Tummies to support me so I can keep doing what I’m doing 🙏.
PRODUCT DETAILS
Gluten free: Legit, not detected.
Vegetarian / vegan: Vegan.
Allergens: Nil. May contain: Nil.
Serving size: 20 serves (based on 10g serves from the 200g bag).
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