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A healthier substitute for chocolates, possibly the most popular snack in the world, has become available as a result of the steady movement toward consuming healthy or organic foods. Numerous new Indian manufacturers have emerged in the last few years to serve this niche market with their bean-to-bar chocolates, which reflect changing global demands for high-quality chocolate.

One of the first names in the market was Mumbai-based Pascati Foods, whose name comes from the Sanskrit word Pascat Parivesya, which means "sweet supper." Pascati was launched in 2015 by Devansh Kumaras India’s first US Department of Agriculture (USDA) and Fairtrade certified organic dark chocolate brand.

Ashar obtained USDA certification in 2017 to increase quality recognition and stand out among rivals. He said that his father observed a shift in people's eating habits toward organic or vegan food while visiting the US in 2016. Additionally, people have begun switching to healthier eating habits in India.They therefore, submitted applications to various organisations that had been approved by the government's export trade promotion body, the Agricultural and Processed Food Products Export Development Authority (APEDA), to offer USDA certification. However, they were rejected because their chocolates contained multiple ingredients, such as organic almonds, organic rose flavour, organic cocoa butter, etc., and the agencies had never before certified a product in India that contained multiple ingredients because no one had contacted them about it.

Eventually, a Bengaluru-based organisation called Aditi Organic Certifications agreed to inspect the productas well as Pascati's manufacturing facility in Palghar, around 100 km north of Mumbai, to make sure there was no cross-contamination with conventional items. Ashar said that people who eat organic food have been examining labels and other information on the packet, especially since COVID, to know what they are consuming. Thus, a USDA logo with pertinent information aids people in choosing our goods. Along with working with hotels like W Goa by Marriott and Ananda in the Himalayas in Uttarakhand, Pascati also does private labelling for supermarket delivery company Nature's Basket.

After graduating in 2009 from the US with a degree in hospitality management, Ashar spent almost four years working in the hospitality industry in India. His final sting took place at the Taj Falaknuma Palace in Hyderabad, from which he departed in 2013 in order to start his own business. In the meantime, he started working for his family's nearly 30-year-old company, Venus Electronics, which insulates copper strips into coils for customers, including Indian Railways. It took Ashar around a year and a half to come up with the concept for an organic bean-to-bar chocolate company.

Since he couldn't offer any value to the family firm, he started looking into alternative business opportunities. On a certain day near the end of 2014, his nephew was eating a chocolate bar. Ashar bit into the chocolate bar, but it didn't melt on his tongue. He observed that it was a compound chocolate, made of cocoa powder and oil, as opposed to Lindt chocolates, which melt with minimal effort. This helped him to comprehend the entire chocolate-making process, from choosing the beans to creating the bars. He saw that while organic bean-to-bar chocolate was getting more and more popular in the US, there weren't many manufacturers of the product in India. He took a three-month online course in chocolate manufacturing before starting to make chocolate treats at home with a coffee grinder and cocoa nibs (crumbled beans).

To gather customer input, they started taking part in neighbourhood markets and fairs. Based on favourable feedback, they established a small facility in Daman, but it was soon outgrown, and they later expanded to the current plant in Palghar.

In addition to cocoa powder and cocoa butter for eateries, cafés, and home bakers, the company also sells chocolate bars and chocolate spreads. In Pascati's bars, the minimum percentage of dark chocolate varies from 60 to 90%. The company purchases raw beans from three cocoa farmer cooperatives in Kerala's Malabar Hills, Idukki, and Kottayam districts, each of which has about 1,200 farmers.

Currently, Pascati makes and sells 4,000 chocolate bars each month, with a typical increase of 9,000 during the Diwali season. The company sells goods through its website, e-commerce, and offline modern retail stores. However, the offline channel generates about 95% of its sales. Following Covid, they were growing at a rate of 20-25 percent per year, with 4.5 metric tonnes of cocoa processed in 2020, up from nearly 7 metric tonnes the previous year. They would be close to 8 metric tonnes this year.