Sourcing Story: White Truffle

Building off the heritage of Crème Ancienne, which was inspired by the world’s first cream, our quest for precious ingredients led us to Alba, Italy, to unearth our exclusive white truffle. A miracle of nature, the white truffle has the most complex genome of the truffle kingdom. It cannot be cultivated and spends 10 years developing underground in precise conditions, awaiting discovery.

White truffle is considered the rarest and most prized truffle because it grows in limited climates off the roots of specific species of trees. Living underground, the white truffle’s spores aren’t dispersed by the wind, so they rely on animals to consume them and spread their spores. Between October and December, optimal environmental conditions allow the white truffles to form. At maturation, white truffles produce a strong scent. In a long-standing local tradition, master truffle hunters use expertly trained dogs that detect the scent and handpick the precious white truffles. After our white truffle is carefully collected, it is purified using a patented* enzymatic extraction process to release 100% of the truffle’s bioactive compounds. Capturing all the active molecules from the white truffle in one extract gives this ingredient its high potency.

Our sourcing

As a member of the Union for Ethical BioTrade (UEBT), fresh is on a journey to advance sourcing practices that help people and biodiversity thrive. Since 2020, we’ve worked with UEBT to improve the way we select and source our ingredients. This involves on-site assessments of local suppliers and cultivation or wild collection sites with verifications against the UEBT standard. The verification process is based on UEBT’s 7 principles, with the aim of showing progress toward sourcing with respect for people and biodiversity.

The sourcing of our white truffle was assessed by UEBT in November 2021 at the beginning of the harvest season. The UEBT assessor utilized the full field checklist of more than 100 criteria to perform the assessment on white truffles on site in Alba, Italy. Based on the findings of this assessment, our white truffle reached UEBT verified Responsibly Sourced level. This means that the sourcing has no negative impact on people or on biodiversity. Still, the findings of the assessment allowed the local supplier and fresh to identify potential improvements and create an improvement plan. The next step in our journey is to partner with the local supplier and UEBT to put this improvement plan in place.

Save the Truffle

Because the white truffle is such a rare and precious ingredient, we’re also dedicated to its preservation. fresh has been actively collaborating with the Save the Truffle association since November of 2020. Based in Alba, Italy, Save the Truffle was founded in 2015 by Carolo Marenda, a truffle hunter, and Edmondo Bonelli, a natural scientist. Their sole mission: To protect and safeguard the truffle ecosystem through biodiversity. Their focus is in three areas:

1. They provide virtual educational lessons on the truffle’s ecosystem and history to students, associations, and individuals.

2. The Research and Biodiversity Preservation conducts environmental analysis and studies. They also manage the truffle’s biodiversity and environment, which includes planting new trees and maintaining the forest to promote truffle growth.

3. Truffle hunting is done in full respect of the mushroom’s ecosystem.

Both fresh and Save the Truffle value preserving biodiversity and educating on traditional savior-faire. To date, our partnership with Save the Truffle has resulted in approximately 750 new trees planted, 100,000 square meters of forest maintenance, and 550 students educated in schools.

*patent granted ITBO20070542