Dalci: Gooey brownies set out on a chemical-free food crusade

Editor's note: In this story, Najwa Khan refers to Dalci brownies being chemical free, referring to artificial chemicals. All foods contain natural chemicals such as salt, carbohydrates, protein, fat and fiber.

A few years ago, when Najwa Khan was scouring the aisles for a healthy packaged treat, she found paint thinner.

Specifically, she found foods labeled “natural” that contained ingredients processed with the toxic hydrocarbon hexane. And it really pissed her off. In fact, for a baker of wholesome brownies so yummy they can make you forget all that’s wrong in the world for a few bites, Khan is pretty angry. Luckily, it’s a passionate, productive kind of anger, the kind that fueled her through a master’s degree and career in public health to fight health injustice then to launch Dalci.

The company makes decadent brownies and blondies with no chemicals, “feel-good treats without the freaky stuff.” The single-serving, refrigerated goodies come in four flavors. Microwave them for 10 seconds to maximize the Gooeyness Quotient.

Najwa Khan, founder of Dalci brownies

“I just get so angry,” she says, about misleading labels and the hijacking of the term “clean” by brands that sell foods that are anything but. “It makes me so upset that companies are marketing to the vulnerability of Americans who do want healthier food,” but are being sold something that only “looks healthy.”

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Dalci recently hit $1 million in sales and secured nationwide distribution. Inc. magazine called out Khan as a top female founder. Those things are mere single-ingredient chocolate chips in the vat of brownie batter for Khan, however. She’s on a chemical-free crusade for clarity in clean. “My motivation every day is to make it easier for people to feel good and to change the food industry for the better,” she says. 

She personally experienced just how “insanely hard” on the schedule, budget and social life it can be to try to eat a chemical-free diet. Working long hours as a project manager for a health tech company, chronic stomach pain had her popping Tums and Pepto like breath mints. Her mind was foggy. She dragged with fatigue. Doctors diagnosed IBS, a cyst on her thyroid, a cyst on her ovaries, infertility issues, hormonal imbalances and more. After medication offered no relief, she found a holistic practitioner who suggested she cut processed foods and the chemicals they contained. Determined to feel better, she vowed to do it for a year.

“I was so naïve,” she says. “I thought it would be easy. I’d just go to Whole Foods.” Then she started reading labels. And reading between the lines. “I mean, the fourth most common ingredient in food is ‘natural flavors.’ And I learned natural flavors can have paint thinner, can have carcinogens, can have a slew of chemicals.”

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Najwa Khan, founder of Dalci brownies, created a music video of a very angry brownie riffing on food brands that "clean wash" their ingredients list.

 After a year of chemical-free eating, Khan felt superhuman: no stomach pain, a clear mind, tons of energy, no cysts, normal hormone levels. She even became pregnant, something she and her husband had struggled to accomplish. But she knew she couldn’t sustain her chemical-free diet. It was too time-consuming and expensive. “It’s unrealistic,” she says, for her and for anyone who has a job, a family—a life.

She wants to make it easier. Delicious, chemical-free packaged treats, something she could never find, would be a great space to target, she thought. It was during the pandemic, over glasses of wine with her husband, when she asked, “How hard can it be?”

“Again, I was so naïve,” she laughs. She didn’t know how to bake. She didn’t know how grueling it would be to launch a company from her Hoboken, New Jersey, condo while pregnant. She didn’t know about the incredible distribution challenges of the perishable supply chain—something that recently cost Dalci $400,000. The company produced a huge order of brownies for a retailer, printing the labels with a refrigerated “sell-by” date. Then the retailer changed its forecast. And while the brownies can last in the freezer for a year, the label date made them seem expired when they weren’t.

She learned “a lot about how much to believe forecasts,” she says with a laugh, and “even more about how tricky the perishable food supply chain is.”

The toughest challenge so far, though, has been fundraising. “It’s hard to fundraise to an investor who is thinking about the sex appeal of a product and what they believe is clean because right now, there is no one term for this (chemical-free) movement,” she says. “And because we're a first mover in this, it's really difficult to show investors how this is more than just a brownie brand, so much more than just a chemical-free brand and how we're really setting the stage for this new type of food product. But it's happening. The movement is here.”

And while the challenges of fundraising for a truly clean product against competitors with dirty secrets can, she admits, make her angry, Khan’s focused that energy into the brand, including a hilariously fresh music video that features a very angry brownie riffing on clean-washing, “I’m Just A Clean Little Brownie with a Dirty Little Mouth.”

She didn’t play it for her recent presentation at the Nutrition Capital Network’s spring investor meeting. “It’s a bit too unhinged,” she says. Dalci won the Audience Choice Award anyway.