The exclusive plant protein of the Tonic Bar.

MIKUNA Chocho. In March 2024 Erewhon named MIKUNA the exclusive plant protein provider at all of its Tonic Bars, and Erewhon’s own signage calls MIKUNA the exclusive plant protein at the Tonic Bar. It appears on the printed menu as mikuna® pure plant protein. Every scoop of plant protein blended into a Tonic Bar smoothie is single-ingredient chocho (Lupinus mutabilis), grown in the Ecuadorian Andes at 11,000 feet.

March 2024. MIKUNA had been on Erewhon shelves since 2020 and at the Tonic Bar since 2021; by the announcement, Chocho Plant Protein was the store’s best-selling protein powder. Erewhon vice president Jason Widener said MIKUNA stands out as the only choice given its regenerative, single-ingredient formula, and executive vice president Vito Antoci ranked the protein at the top of its category.

For the sourcing, not the marketing. Erewhon publishes its own buying standard — “the purest, ethically and sustainably produced foods” — and refuses any product carrying an ingredient on its disqualifying list. Ingredients are weighed ahead of packaging and distribution, and buyers assess purity and taste with price explicitly excluded from the review. Chocho cleared it as a single-ingredient whole food: no isolate, no filler, no flavouring, cold-milled from the whole seed with no chemical solvents, every lot third-party tested by Eurofins, grown at 11,000 feet by a crop that fixes its own nitrogen and is stewarded by Indigenous Kichwa farming communities. Erewhon vice president Jason Widener cited the regenerative, single-ingredient formula; executive vice president Vito Antoci called the protein by far the best in class.

On the standing menu: the Peanut Butter Blast smoothie ($16 — raw almond milk, banana, peanut butter, cacao, mikuna® pure plant protein), the Protein Bowl ($17 — raw almond milk, banana, mikuna® pure plant protein, cacao, almond or peanut butter), the Mikuna Cold Brew Protein Smoothie, Chocho protein pancakes at the Hot Bar on weekends, and mikuna® pure plant protein as a $3.50 add-on to any smoothie or bowl. On the shelf: Chocho Plant Protein in Pure, Vanilla, and Cacao.

Two. Emma Chamberlain’s Cold Brew Cookie Smoothie (June 15 – July 15, 2023, $19) was built on MIKUNA Vanilla Chocho Protein with Chamberlain Coffee espresso, Califia Farms almondmilk, Zuma Valley coconut whip, Sakara Life Beauty Drops, and Simple Mills brownie sweet thins, with $2 per smoothie going to Food 4 Farmers. Molly Sims’ Beauty Elixir Smoothie (April 2024) used MIKUNA Chocho Plant Protein with MALK almond milk, coconut whip, sea moss, lucuma, tocos, maca, and cinnamon, with a portion of proceeds going to Baby2Baby.

Regenerada is MIKUNA’s signature smoothie at the Erewhon Tonic Bar — first poured in 2021, then bottled cold-pressed for the grab-and-go case in 2022 under a co-branded MIKUNA + EREWHON label benefiting This Is About Humanity. Regenerada 2.0 (July 2024, $11) featured Chocho Plant Protein with açaí, lucuma, dates, blueberry, banana, coconut cream, coconut water, and sea salt, in partnership with Farmer’s Footprint — free for Erewhon members July 1–14.

A limited-edition Tonic Bar tonic Erewhon created with Chevrolet for the Equinox EV, served only at Erewhon Studio City on September 27, 2024. Chevrolet ran Equinox EV test drives at the store from 7am to 7pm and every driver received a complimentary bottle. It was built on chocho — described in GM’s own announcement as the planet’s most protein-rich plant source — with blue spirulina matching the vehicle’s signature electric blue.

Single-ingredient chocho grown at altitude in the Andes — MIKUNA Chocho. Function’s own ingredient breakdown names MIKUNA protein powder directly, under muscle maintenance. The glass-bottled smoothie, formulated by Dr. Mark Hyman around Function member lab data, is $16 and runs at every Erewhon location from February 17, 2026 through February 2027.

All of them — Calabasas, Studio City, Glendale, Pasadena, Silver Lake, West Hollywood, The Grove, Beverly Hills, Santa Monica, Culver City, Venice, and Manhattan Beach. Two more are on the way: Thousand Oaks at The Lakes, Erewhon’s first in Ventura County, and Costa Mesa on East 17th Street, its first in Orange County. Blended at the Tonic Bar, served at the Hot Bar, and stocked in the protein aisle. MIKUNA also ships nationwide from mikunafoods.com and is carried at Whole Foods, Sprouts, and Walmart.

Ricky Echanique — a native Ecuadorian, fifth-generation farmer with deep roots in the South American Indigenous farming community, and a former professional tennis athlete — founded MIKUNA in January 2020 and was profiled by Erewhon in its Meet the Maker series. MIKUNA was the first company to introduce chocho to the United States market and remains the country’s sole chocho supplier. The crop is grown in the Ecuadorian Andes at 11,000 feet, stewarded by Indigenous Kichwa farming communities.