If you want the closest match to Hu, start with Pascha for coconut sugar, Raaka for a date-sweetened bar with no added sugar, Honey Mama's for something fudgier, and ChocZero if you need zero sugar without sugar alcohols. Pick the sweetener first. Everything else follows from there.
Two things send people looking for a Hu alternative. The first is sweetener. Hu built its reputation on coconut sugar and a short ingredient list, so the useful question is not "what else is clean" but "what else uses the sweetener I actually want". The second is ownership. Mondelez International announced in January 2021 that it had acquired 100 percent of Hu Products, having first taken a minority stake in 2019, and said Hu would run inside its North American Ventures business. For plenty of shoppers, that alone is the reason they are reading this page.
Every brand below is an independent maker with its own store, so you can buy direct rather than through a marketplace. If you want the broader field rather than Hu-adjacent picks, our roundup of the best chocolate brands covers the category end to end.
How we picked these brands
- Independent, or clear about ownership. No brand here belongs to a multinational confectionery group. That is the whole premise of the search.
- A sweetener you can name. Coconut sugar, dates, honey, monk fruit or plain cane sugar. No mystery blends, and we flag the sugar alcohols because plenty of people react to them.
- You can buy direct. Each one runs its own store with its own catalog, not just an Amazon listing.
- Sourcing you can check. A trade program, an origin, a farmer page or a certification that exists on the brand's own site.
- Credit for publishing test results. Lead and cadmium in dark chocolate is a real question, and a few of these makers publish their numbers. That earned them a place.
At a glance
| Brand | Best for | Price | Known for |
|---|---|---|---|
| Honey Mama's | Candy-bar cravings | Mid | Refrigerated fudge bars, no refined sugar |
| Mid-Day Squares | A functional snack bar | Mid | Fridge squares with protein and fiber |
| Raaka | Zero added sugar | Mid to premium | Unroasted cacao, Transparent Trade |
| Beyond Good | Traceable sourcing | Mid | Chocolate made at the source |
| Taza | Texture lovers | Mid | Stone-ground Mexican-style discs and bars |
| ChocZero | Keto without sugar alcohols | Mid | No added sugar, no sugar alcohols |
| Alter Eco | Ethics on a budget | Budget to mid | Organic, fair trade, reforestation |
| Theo | An everyday certified bar | Budget to mid | Fair for Life, organic, 55 to 85% |
| Blue Stripes | Trying something new | Mid | Upcycled whole cacao pod |
| Pascha | Allergy households | Budget to mid | Nut, dairy and soy free, coconut sugar |
| Dandelion | Single-origin purists | Premium | Two-ingredient, harvest-dated bars |
| Fine & Raw | Gifting | Premium | Truffles, spreads and hazelnut butter bars |
1. Honey Mama's
Honey Mama's makes chocolate fudge bars you keep in the fridge, built from organic whole foods and free from refined sugar, dairy, gluten and soy. The texture is the point. The company describes it as somewhere between brownie batter, a truffle and fudge, which is a very different eating experience from a snappy dark bar.
There is also a Protein Crunch Bar line with 10g of protein and the same no-refined-sugar rule.
Best for the person who wants a candy-bar moment rather than a square of 85% after dinner. Worth knowing they ship cold, so summer delivery takes planning.
2. Mid-Day Squares
Mid-Day Squares also lives in the fridge, and says so on every page: store it cold, then carry it for up to five days. Each square is plant based, gluten free, Non-GMO Project Verified, made without palm oil, and carries 4g of fiber and 6g of protein.
Flavors lean dessert rather than dark chocolate. Cookie Dough, Brownie Batter, Peanut Butta and two PB&J versions.
Best for anyone who wants a snack with some nutrition behind it. If you are cross-shopping better-for-you snacks generally, the same instinct shows up in our Chomps alternatives guide.
3. Raaka Chocolate
Raaka Chocolate makes unroasted chocolate, which keeps brighter and fruitier notes in the bean than a conventional roast does. Everything is USDA Organic and vegan, and the company runs its own Transparent Trade program with published sourcing.
The bar to know here is Pure Cacao, Dates & Vanilla: 80% cacao, sweetened entirely with dates, no added sugar at all. Raaka also publishes third-party heavy-metal test results, which very few makers do.
Best for the shopper who wants no added sugar and a sourcing story that can be checked. You can visit the factory shop in Brooklyn.
4. Beyond Good
Beyond Good makes its chocolate at origin instead of shipping beans off to a European factory, and puts the growing country on the front of the wrapper. The 73% Orange Zest bar reads "grown in Uganda" and "100% traceable" right on the pack.
The site has a dedicated page for the farmers it buys from, which is a step past a generic sustainability claim.
Best for the ethics-first shopper who wants traceability to the farm rather than a certification logo alone. Sweetened with cane sugar, so it is not a coconut-sugar match for Hu.
5. Taza Chocolate
Taza Chocolate stone-grinds its cacao in the Mexican tradition, which leaves a deliberate grittiness that people either love immediately or never come around to. The range covers bars, discs, chocolate-covered nuts and cacao nibs, and the Wicked Dark line carries 0g of sugar.
Everything is USDA Organic, and Taza runs a published Direct Trade program with its own certification page.
Best for texture seekers and anyone who finds most dark chocolate too uniform. Try a single disc before committing to a multipack.
6. ChocZero
ChocZero solves a specific problem: sugar-free chocolate that does not use sugar alcohols. Maltitol and erythritol are what make a lot of keto chocolate uncomfortable to eat in any quantity, and ChocZero leaves them out entirely while still hitting zero added sugar.
The catalog runs well past bars into wafers, cookies and filled candy, with 15g of fiber per serving on some lines.
Best for keto and blood-sugar-conscious shoppers, especially anyone who has already tried the sugar-alcohol brands and regretted it.
7. Alter Eco
Alter Eco is the easiest brand here to find in a normal grocery store, which matters if you do not want to wait for shipping. The bars are USDA Organic and fair trade, and the company runs a reforestation program it prints on the wrapper.
The 85% Almond Blackout carries 4g of sugar per serving, and the range extends into truffles, granola and oat clusters.
Best for the ethics-minded shopper on a budget. Cane sugar sweetened, so treat it as a values match rather than an ingredient match.
8. Theo Chocolate
Theo Chocolate organizes its whole range by cocoa level, from 55% up to 85%, and carries both USDA Organic and Fair for Life fair trade certification across the line. The company publishes an impact report on its own site rather than leaving the claims on the packaging.
Flavors stay familiar: sea salt, salted almond, coconut almond, lemon, orange.
Best for someone who wants a certified everyday bar without a learning curve. This is the safest gift in the list for a person whose taste you do not know.
9. Blue Stripes
Blue Stripes builds its whole product line around a single fact it states plainly: the chocolate industry uses only the beans and discards roughly 70% of the cacao pod. Blue Stripes upcycles the shell and the surrounding fruit too.
That gets you truffle bars at 70% cacao with 5g of sugar per half bar, plus cacao water, granola, trail mix and chocolate-covered cacao beans. Everything is Non-GMO Project Verified, vegan and gluten free.
Best for the shopper who likes trying a format nobody else is making.
10. Pascha
Pascha is the closest ingredient match to Hu on this list. The 70% bars and baking chips use coconut sugar with no refined sugar, run to three ingredients, are USDA Organic and vegan, and are labeled paleo-friendly.
The allergen position is the real differentiator: nut free, dairy free and soy free, with a published list of ingredients the company refuses to use.
Best for allergy households and for anyone who simply wants the coconut-sugar profile they came for. If you are stocking a whole allergy-safe pantry, our Partake Foods alternatives roundup covers the baking side.
11. Dandelion Chocolate
Dandelion Chocolate makes bean-to-bar chocolate in San Francisco with two ingredients, cocoa beans and cane sugar, and prints the origin, the harvest year and the maker on every wrapper. A 2025 Maya Mountain, Belize bar tells you which cooperative fermented the beans and who roasted them.
The company publishes a sourcing report and runs factory tours and classes.
Best for the flavor purist who wants to taste the difference between origins. Not a low-sugar pick, and priced accordingly.
12. Fine & Raw
Fine & Raw makes small-batch chocolate in formats most of this list skips. Alongside bars there are truffles, chocolate spreads and "chunkies", and the hazelnut butter bar is the one people come back for.
The packaging is illustrated and gift-ready, and the store is organized by price band, which makes it unusually easy to shop for someone else.
Best for gifting, or for anyone who wants a jar of chocolate spread more than another bar.
How to choose a Hu alternative
Start with the sweetener, because that is what makes a bar taste like Hu or not.
If you want coconut sugar, go to Pascha. If you want dates and no added sugar at all, Raaka's Pure Cacao, Dates & Vanilla is the bar. If honey is fine and you want something fudgy, Honey Mama's. If you need zero sugar and cannot tolerate sugar alcohols, ChocZero. If plain organic cane sugar is fine, then Theo, Alter Eco, Taza, Beyond Good and Dandelion are all open to you.
Then layer on your second priority. Allergy household, Pascha. Traceability, Beyond Good. Certification, Theo or Alter Eco. Texture, Taza. Single origin, Dandelion. Gifting, Fine & Raw. Something new, Blue Stripes. A snack rather than a dessert, Mid-Day Squares.
One practical note: the refrigerated brands are excellent and they are also the fussiest to ship in warm months. Order those in cooler weather or accept the cold-pack surcharge. Buying direct usually gets you fresher stock and the full range, which is true across DTC food brands generally, not just chocolate.
Frequently asked questions
Who owns Hu chocolate now?
Mondelez International. The company announced in January 2021 that it had acquired 100 percent ownership of Hu Products, after making a minority investment in 2019 through its SnackFutures hub. Mondelez said at the time that Hu would operate as a separate business within its North American Ventures model.
What is the closest bar to Hu Simple Dark?
Pascha's 70% organic dark chocolate. It uses coconut sugar rather than cane, keeps the ingredient list to three items, and is labeled paleo-friendly, which is about as close to the Hu formula as this list gets. Raaka is the next closest if you would rather have no added sugar at all.
Which of these brands publish heavy-metal test results?
Raaka publishes third-party lead and cadmium results on its own site, which is rare in this category. Taza has also performed well in independent testing coverage. If this matters to you, check the brand's own testing page before ordering, since results change with each harvest.
Are any of these cheaper than Hu?
Alter Eco, Theo and Pascha generally sit at the lower end of this list, and all three are widely available in grocery stores, which saves you shipping. Dandelion and Fine & Raw sit at the premium end. Buying a multipack direct from the brand is usually cheaper per bar than a single bar at retail.
Which have no added sugar at all?
Raaka's Pure Cacao, Dates & Vanilla is sweetened entirely with dates and has no added sugar. ChocZero has no added sugar and no sugar alcohols. Taza's Wicked Dark line carries 0g of sugar. Read the panel rather than the front of the pack, since "no refined sugar" and "no added sugar" mean different things.
Which alternatives are safe for a nut allergy?
Pascha is the one built for it, with nut free, dairy free and soy free labeling and a published list of excluded ingredients. Most of the others run nuts on shared lines, so check each brand's allergen statement directly rather than assuming.
Do the refrigerated bars survive shipping?
Honey Mama's and Mid-Day Squares both ship cold and both hold up fine in cooler months. In summer, order early in the week, expect an insulated pack, and get them into the fridge the day they land. If that sounds like effort, the shelf-stable bars on this list are the easier choice.