This Could Be the Future of Your Chocolate

Climate change is stressing rainforests where the highly sensitive cocoa bean grows, but chocolate lovers need not despair, per the AP. Cocoa trees grow about 20 degrees north and south of the equator in regions with warm weather and abundant rain, including West Africa and South America. Climate change is expected to dry out the land under the additional heat. So scientists, entrepreneurs, and chocolate lovers are coming up with ways to grow cocoa and make the crop more resilient and more resistant to pests—as well as craft chocolatey-tasting cocoa alternatives to meet demand. A look around:

• The market: US chocolate sales surpassed $25 billion in 2023. Many entrepreneurs are betting on demand growing faster than the supply of cocoa. Companies are looking at either bolstering the supply with cell-based cocoa or offering alternatives made from products ranging from oats to carob that are roasted and flavored to produce a chocolatey taste for chips or filling.
• In California: California Cultured is growing cocoa from cell cultures. It puts cocoa bean cells in a vat with sugar water so they mature in a week rather than the six to eight months a traditional harvest takes, says CEO Alan Perlstein. The process cuts back on water and labor. "We see just the demand of chocolate monstrously outstripping what is going to be available," Perlstein says.

• In Israel: Celleste Bio is taking cocoa bean cells and growing them indoors to produce cocoa powder and cocoa butter, says co-founder Hanne Volpin. In a few years, the company expects to be able to produce cocoa regardless of the impact of climate change and disease—an effort that has drawn interest from Cadbury maker Mondelez.
• In Germany: Planet A Foods contends the taste of mass-market chocolate is derived largely from the fermentation and roasting in making it, not the cocoa bean itself. The company tested ingredients ranging from olives to seaweed and settled on a mix of oats and sunflower seeds as the best-tasting chocolate alternative, says rep Jessica Karch. "The idea is not to replace the high quality, 80% dark chocolate, but really to have a lot of different products in the mass market," Karch says.
• Back to California: California Cultured plans to seek FDA permission to call its product chocolate, Perlstein says, because it's genetically identical. "We're growing cocoa—just in a different way."

(More chocolate stories.)