Never fear, chocolate lovers! As cacao producers struggle, researchers find new ways to grow the beloved beans—or develop substitutes. Some processes may even require less water and work. Are sweets eaters ready for lab-grown chocolate chips?
The U.S. chocolate market surpassed $25 billion last year according to the National Confectioners Association. Meanwhile, prices of cocoa and cacao soar due to demand, weather, and crop disease.
Cacao refers to both the tree and the bean used to make cocoa, which is then used to make chocolate. Cacao trees grow in a warm, wet belt around the equator. God specially gifted the rainforests of West Africa and South America with the perfect biome to produce the species.
As these areas suffer from myriad problems, chocolate producers seek solutions from science. Possible remedies include developing stronger, more pest-resistant, less water-dependent cacao beans and crafting bean substitutes.
The substitute developers hope to boost cacao supply with either lab-grown “beans” or stand-ins made from a variety of products.
California Cultured is a plant cell culture company. CEO Alan Perlstein believes chocolate demand will soon “monstrously [outstrip]” supply. He says sustaining the world’s cocoa supply will come at great financial expense, harm to the environment, or some other negative.
California Cultured researchers grow cacao from cultures. The process involves putting cacao bean cells in a vat with sugar water. The sweetened cells reproduce quickly. They mature in about a week instead of the usual six to eight months.
The U.S. push to produce cocoa indoors comes after scientists have already grown products such as chicken meat, beef, and fish in labs.
California Cultured plans to seek permission from the U.S. Food and Drug Administration to call its product “chocolate.” Perlstein says the company is basically “growing cocoa just in a different way.”
Planet A Foods in Germany tested ingredients from olives to seaweed as cocoa substitutes. Scientists there settled on processing an oat-sunflower seed mix as it was the best tasting, says spokesperson Jessica Karch. The result, called “ChoViva,” can sub into baked goods.
In Israel, efforts to expand the supply of cocoa are also under way. Celleste Bio takes cacao bean cells and grows them indoors to produce cocoa powder and cocoa butter, says co-founder Hanne Volpin. The company’s efforts have drawn interest from Mondelez, maker of Cadbury chocolate.
Developers like Perlstein, Karch, and Volpin think people are ready to try what looks and tastes like a chocolate chip cookie—even if the chip is something else.
Maybe so. But will they go for processed seaweed?
Why? As world population and prosperity increases, demand for luxuries and necessities alike will allow God-given creativity to flourish.
For more about chocolate makers, read Milton Hershey: More Than Chocolate by Janet and Geoff Benge in our Recommended Reading.
