WEST SACRAMENTO, Calif. (AP) — Climate change is wreaking havoc on the rainforests where the delicate cocoa beans grow, but cocoa lovers need not despair, say companies exploring other ways to grow cocoa or develop cocoa substitutes.
Scientists and entrepreneurs are working on ways to produce more cocoa, with distribution extending well beyond the tropics from Northern California to Israel.
Plant cell culture company California Cultured is growing cocoa from cell cultures at a facility in West Sacramento, Calif., with plans to start selling its products next year. It puts cocoa bean cells in a tub of sugar water, so they multiply rapidly and ripen in a week, instead of the six to eight months it takes to harvest a traditional crop, said Alan Perlstein, the company’s CEO. The process no longer requires as much water or labor-intensive processing.
“We just see that demand for chocolate is much greater than what’s available,” Perlstein said. “There’s no other way we can see the world increasing its cocoa supply significantly or still keeping it at appropriate levels without extensive environmental degradation or other significant costs.”
Cocoa trees grow about 20 degrees north and south of the equator in warm-weather, rainy regions like West Africa and South America. Climate change is expected to dry out the soil under the added heat. So scientists, entrepreneurs, and chocolate lovers are finding ways to grow cocoa and make the product more resilient and resistant to pests — and creating chocolate-flavored cocoa alternatives to meet demand.
The chocolate market is huge, with U.S. sales set to exceed $25 billion by 2023, according to the National Confectioners Association. Many entrepreneurs are betting that demand will grow faster than cocoa supply. Companies are considering either bolstering supply with cell-based cocoa or offering alternatives made from a variety of products, from oats to carob, that are roasted and sweetened to create a chocolatey flavor for chips or fillings.
Earlier this year, the price of cocoa rose due to demand and crop failures caused by plant diseases and changes in weather conditions in West Africa, the region that produces most of the world’s cocoa.
“All of this leads to potential supply instability, so it’s tempting for lab-grown or cocoa substitute companies to think about ways to replace this ingredient that we know as chocolate flavoring,” said Carla D. Martin, a lecturer in African and African American Studies at Harvard University and executive director of the Fine Cacao and Chocolate Institute.
Martin said the innovation was largely driven by demand for chocolate in the U.S. and Europe. While three-quarters of the world’s cocoa is grown in West and Central Africa, he said only 4% is consumed there.
The push to grow cocoa indoors in the U.S. comes after other products, such as chicken, were grown in labs. It also comes as supermarket shelves fill with burgeoning snack options — something developers of cocoa alternatives say shows people are ready to try something that looks and tastes like a chocolate chip cookie, even if it’s a cocoa substitute in a chocolate chip cookie.
They said they also hope to capitalize on the growing awareness among consumers about where their food comes from and the use of child labor, particularly in the cocoa industry.
Planet A Foods of Planegg, Germany, claims that the flavor of its mass-market chocolate comes largely from the fermentation and roasting of the cocoa bean itself, not the cocoa bean itself. The company’s founders tested ingredients ranging from olives to seaweed and settled on a blend of oats and sunflower seeds as the best-tasting chocolate alternative, said company spokeswoman Jessica Karch. They call it “ChoViva” and it can be used as a substitute in baked goods, she said.
“Our goal is not to replace high-quality, 80% dark chocolate, but to have a variety of different products available in the mass market,” Karch said.
Still, some are trying to create alternative sources and substitutes for cocoa, while others are trying to increase supply where it grows naturally. Mars, which makes M&Ms and Snickers, has a research facility at the University of California, Davis, that aims to make cocoa plants more resilient, said Joanna Hwu, the company’s senior director of cocoa plant science. The facility houses a collection of living cocoa trees so scientists can study what makes them disease-resistant, which can help farmers in producing countries and ensure a steady supply of beans.
“We see this as an opportunity and our responsibility,” Hwu said.
Efforts to expand cocoa supplies are also underway in Israel. Celleste Bio takes cocoa bean cells and grows them indoors to produce cocoa powder and cocoa butter, says co-founder Hanne Volpin. The company hopes to be able to produce cocoa independent of climate change and disease within a few years; an effort that has attracted the interest of Mondelez, maker of Cadbury chocolate.
“We only have a small area, but eventually we will have a bioreactor farm,” Volpin said.
This is similar to a study conducted by California Cultured, which plans to seek permission from the U.S. Food and Drug Administration to call its product chocolate because, according to Perlstein, it should be called chocolate.
It may be called brewery chocolate or local chocolate, but it is definitely not chocolate, because although it is not made from trees, it is genetically the same.
“We see ourselves basically growing cocoa; just in a different way,” Perlstein said.
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Taxin reported from Santa Ana, California.