Valor

Daring sweetness without sugar

 
The Spanish word „valor“ has several meanings in translation, but some of them represent value, courage, and daring. These words best describe the thinking of a Spanish chocolate maker whose story begins in 1881.
Everything started in the town of Villajoyosa, located in the province of Alicante in the Spanish autonomous region, the Valencian Community (Spanish, Comunidad Valenciana) when Valentino López Lloret, who was nicknamed Seῆor Valor by the local population, founded a company named „Chocolates Valor SA“. In the beginning, Valentino collaborated directly with families whose palates craved sweets, who would take from him anything from a few grams to a few kilograms of chocolate. After his son, Vicente López Soler inherited the company, the evolution in chocolate production began at the end of the 19th century, and in 1916, hand grinding with stone was replaced by a windlass of a mechanical mill that was driven by a horse, whose role would soon be taken over by a diesel engine. With the advance in production, sales expanded to other cities and provinces, and direct distribution to families was discontinued. Products are now exclusively distributed in stores, and the first van for distribution Valor acquired in 1935, replacing a horse-drawn carriage, and could transport up to 1 500 kilograms of chocolate.

During the period after the Spanish Civil War (1936 - 1939) the country was going through an extremely difficult period of economic crisis led by the policy of autarky, or financial self-sufficiency under the leadership of Spanish general and dictator Francisco Franco, which among other things, affected the development and progress of all manufacturers due to limitation of raw materials and determination of quotas on the quantities that were allowed to be used in production. A renewed development and progress was noticed after the acceptance of the Stabilization Plan in 1959, which implemented a set of economic measures that would bring Spain back to life and enable its further economic growth. The stabilization of the economy had a positive effect on industry and tourism, opening the market doors to the chocolate industry again, and encouraged by the positive trend, Valor continuously invests in development and in 1968 it reached a production capacity of 10 000 kilograms of chocolate in an 8-hour shift. Alongside mechanical development, the direction Valor will strive for in the future is also determined. The emphasis is primarily on quality, which has become the company policy, and Valor launches a line that has become their trademark under the name Pure Chocolate (Spanish, Chocolate Puro), chocolate in which no vegetable fats were used as a substitute for cocoa butter, which was a completely new and daring direction in terms of chocolate production. Pure, gluten-free chocolate containing only cocoa mass, cocoa butter and sugar will become the precursor of Valor's chocolate’s greatest success, which will happen in the near future.
The event that launched Valor chocolates among the elite of first-class delicacies occurred in 2005, when the market was presented after thorough, three-year research, a Valor gluten-free chocolate which was now also sugar-free, and whose range of tastes was identical to the traditional Valor chocolate with the help of stevia, or a natural sweetener and substitute for sugar obtained from the Stevia rebaudiana plant, whereby the demand for this sweet pleasure without sugar drastically increased in a short period of time. Just a few years later, Valor chocolates become globally recognized, and as early as 2011 they won one of the most prestigious awards "European Candy Kettle Award" for special contribution to research and development, innovations in product quality and production technology, exceptional marketing and sales strategy, as well as unique contribution to the development of the confectionery industry.
With the development of technology and medicine, we have begun to easily access certain information that would improve the quality of life, and with the excessive consumption of sugar found in most of today's products, one of the newer things we have discovered that can have a negative effect on the human body is gluten, an elastic and sticky protein mixture found in cereals like wheat, rye, barley and oats. Gluten is found in most products today, if not in full form then at least in traces, as factories tend to process more raw materials on the same machines, and more and more people are beginning to become aware of a possible problem that is still somewhat hidden to most. This protein can be a problem causing a milder, allergic body reaction or a more severe reaction, celiac disease, or a complete intolerance to gluten, which drastically needs to change the diet in order to function normally.

It is believed that chocolate with 70 percent or more cocoa content contains more antioxidants than walnuts and red wine, and it is also said that chocolate is a natural antidepressant because it contains tryptophan, an essential amino acid through which serotonin is produced, better known to us as the "happiness hormone". That’s why a product like gluten-free chocolate, which is also sugar-free, represents a certain hope for people who simply have to live without gluten, and those who might want to try to live without sugar, but who don’t have to lose the little things in life that used to put a big smile on their face.