About us

Frequently asked questions

Over the years we’ve noticed a few questions cropping up a little more often than others. Here is a list of Chart-Toppers and Best Hits to help cover some more frequently asked questions.

About us

Frequently asked questions

Over the years we’ve noticed a few questions cropping up a little more often than others. Here is a list of Chart-Toppers and Best Hits to help cover some more frequently asked questions. 

The humectant in our vanilla extract and paste is made from plant-based glycerine and is therefore perfectly suitable for a vegan diet!

Yes – absolutely! Although there may be certain country-specific restrictions on importation of certain products, for example our Vanilla Paste and Extract are not available for shipping to parts of the Middle East. You can contact us for specific details or restrictions depending on where you are situated.

If you place your order online, we will contact you after the order is confirmed with a quote for shipping for you to approve before we get it on its way to you!

Costs to ship your goodies will depend on where you are and also how large or small your order is.

For any main centres there is usually a flat rate of R65 and for outlying areas a flat rate of R120 is applied.
For orders above R600, delivery is free of charge!

Although please note that FREE delivery ONLY applies to Main Centres.

For any orders from countries outside of South Africa, we will need to generate a separate quote for transport that you will need to approve before shipping.

This depends on where you are, but for most main centres and assuming that you have not ordered anything outside of our standard retail lines (for example, our gifting range, or bulk bags) then it should usually not take longer than 2-3 working days.

For international orders unfortunately it is much harder to predict and exact time but could take up to two weeks.

Yes, absolutely, if you have a new channel of distribution where we do not already have existing relationships in place. Get in touch with us to find out more on info@nomu.co.za

Great question! The ethanol that is present in this product bakes off during the baking process and therefore does not leave any alcohol in any cooked/baked final product. This view has been confirmed by our longstanding accreditors for NOMU; The Muslim Judicial Council of South Africa.

Yes. The NOMU Factory Shop is located at 108 Aviation Crescent, Airport City, 7490, Cape Town.

Once your order is ready, we will notify you and you are welcome to come and grab your goodies whenever it suits you, so long as that’s between 8am-4pm, Monday to Friday!

We are not open on weekends and public holidays.

Please visit our deliveries and collections page for more information.

Yes, you can ALWAYS speak to the manager. We always try to find a helpful solution to any questions!

Well, this is a tricky one, but we are also going to go with ‘42’… Seems fair.

The majority of NOMU products do NOT contain gluten, but we cannot make the gluten-free claim.
So the short answer is ‘NO,’ unless we are talking the Baking Kits that do contain flour.

However, the important thing to note is that although there is no gluten in virtually any of our other products, gluten is still present in just some of the ingredients used in the factory.

And even if there is literally, virtually zero chance of cross-contamination, since the production areas are kept wholly and entirely distinct, we cannot make a ‘gluten-free’ claim for the entire facility.

It’s important to be upfront about this stuff.

With or without moustaches?

Well, it’s a bit silly, but bear with us…

Tracy (NOMU creator and founder) was once upon a time a fairly committed vegetarian (boarding school food tends to have this effect on people).

When she originally thought about starting NOMU it was going to be a delicatessen food emporium and not a retail brand.

So Paul (still her boyfriend at the time) suggested that her dream outlet would not have a very large red-meat section.

In his mind, ‘No red meat = No Cow = No MOO = NOMU’

We said it was silly.

NOMU is widely available both ONLINE and through a fantastic selection of general and speciality retailers throughout South Africa and internationally.

The range that is available in your nearest traditional retailer will depend on the retailer themselves and so for the best, overall solution, NOMU Online www.nomu.co.za is the most reliable overall choice selection.

For our international clients, AMAZON USA has a wide selection on offer, while AMAZON UK currently has a limited range but one that we are gradually expanding over time.

That’s easy. The cat was neither dead nor alive. It was the box’s fault. There were no bears in the vicinity and nothing beats NOMU Hot Chocolate in the dead of winter. Not even remotely.

Yes, we do, sometimes, but not as formal policy.

We will periodically welcome in some excellent young, dynamic energy to be put to work across several parts of the business, as a sort of generalized apprenticeship, but with the goal of trying expose an ambitious young person to multiple aspects of to the business.

It’s not what you’d expect, but then life very rarely is.

Feel free to send us your CV to info@nomu.co.za and if we need some extra hands, and if we think you might make a great contribution, you never know, we might be in touch!

Um, yes and no.

Certainly, some of the range is suitable and some is not, and unfortunately the NOMU range is quite wide so we have several offerings and not all of them will suit a vegan diet.

For example, the majority of our Hot Chocolates for example are not suitable as they contain dairy-based ingredients, but NOMU Dark Decadent Chunks Hot Chocolate is absolutely ideal for vegan customers.

Similarly the NOMU Chicken, Lamb and Beef STOCKS are not suitable but the Vegetable STOCK is absolutely perfect.

NOMU Baking Kits are suitable for vegans, but in order to make truly vegan cakes and muffins, you will need to source and use alternatives to butter and eggs.

This product is 100% vegan, meaning it contains no animal-derived ingredients, however it is manufactured in the same factory as other dairy-containing products. This results in unavoidable, involuntary presence of milk allergens due to cross-contamination. So we can’t fully guarantee contain no traces of animal products. For this reason, many vegan-certified foods have “May contain: Cow’s milk’’ as a precautionary statement on the label. To someone with a milk allergy, knowing about even trace amounts of milk can be crucial, even if only due to cross contamination and not because it is deliberately added to the product.

Kosher packaging requirements are that Kosher Dairy logo (‘Milchik’) should be used when there is the possibility of cow’s milk being present in the product from cross contamination either from raw materials or the production facility. Kosher Parev is only acceptable when the product does not have any possibility of containing cow’s milk. Because some of the raw materials used in NOMU Vegan Hot Chocolate are made in facilities that may contain cow’s milk (and the product is packed in our facility that uses cow’s milk), the product has to state ‘Kosher Dairy’ even though the product does not contain any cow’s milk.

For a product to be dairy-free it has to be produced in what we call a ‘fully segregated environment’ i.e. no dairy is used in the manufacturing area and even the air is filtered. The end-product has to not have detectable levels of dairy and must be suitable for dairy allergy sufferers. A vegan product is one that is made using no animal ingredients. Vegan products might have been manufactured in an environment where dairy is also used, and these products could therefore still have a “may contain” labeling when there is an allergen that could be present because of cross-contamination. So, just to be safe, it’s important to alert anyone with dairy allergies and not to be mistaken for something that technically, completely ‘dairy-free’.

If you’re looking to avoid cow’s milk due to being lactose intolerant or vegan, there are plenty of nondairy alternatives available and these are known as ‘’milk alternatives’’ as they are alternative options to cow’s milk. There are a growing variety of milk alternative that you can choose from, some of the more popular being soy, almond, oat, macadamia, and rice milk. We personally love drinking NOMU Vegan Hot Chocolate with a rich, nutty, and decadent macadamia milk.

Yup, NOMU Cinnamon carries the Botanical name of “Cinnamomum Zeylanicum Blume” which apart from sounding very fancy, is also the technical name for Ceylon or ‘True Cinnamon.’ It has a sweet & spicy taste profile.

100%, absolutely, completely and totally. We’d LOVE to send it to you, along with our full, digital catalogue as well.

Just fire an email to info@nomu.co.za and we’ll respond with everything you need as soon as we can!

You are also welcome to send whatever product-related, or product selection questions you have to the same address. We’re always super happy to try and help with creative ideas and suggestions to suit your specific needs!

A million years ago, we met a dive-guide who couldn’t pronounce ‘voucher.’ Instead, he kept asking us if we had a ‘WOW-cher,’ and you know what? It stuck. 

Besides, it’s sweet and we like it, and it works. These vouchers always deliver on the WOW factor!

Nope! There is no (or rather ‘no added’) gluten in the Stocks.

However, to be able to formally say ‘Gluten-Free’ would be a technical claim requiring accreditation and certification for a plant or facility, to technically guarantee that there is no gluten at all, present in the production facility.

Because we can, not necessarily because we should, which may be equally unhelpful…

Although NOMU SKINNY fulfils a valuable and delicious, highly functional solution for many living with diabetes or striving to achieve a calorie controlled diet, ultimately the goal has always been to achieve a Hot Chocolate that is as delightfully decadent as it is brilliantly guuilt-free!

Detailed information on this product can be found at this link if you are interested: 

https://nomu.co.za/product/skinny-hot-chocolate/

NOMU SKINNY is also endorsed by The GI Foundation and Diabetes South Africa and also features Kosher and Halaal accreditations. It is also Bantingn and KETO-friendly!

Interestingly NOMU SKINNY was never originally designed to be any of this in the very first place. We used to indulge in a huge cups of ‘normal’ instant Hot Chocolate every night and so we challenged ourselves to find something far healthier. We ‘soft-launched’ SKINNY V.1 at a local food show, in 2006, and were more shocked than anyone when all of the sample stock sold out in literally just a few hours.

The general count is 7g per serving, but this might go up or down slightly depending which type of milk (or milk alternative) you prefer to use.

Yes, but unfortunately not nearly as much as we’d like to. We prefer to focus, using what we have available, on three specific areas: children in need, environmental protection, and animal rescue and welfare. We will always prioritize these areas but do try our best to make a difference wherever and whenever it’s possible.

Not quite the answers you were looking for?

Ask an even better one and we might send you some hot chocolate…

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