Of course, food prices are going up everywhere, but as my fellow chocolate lovers know, the prices of this universally loved treat indeed increase due to the increasing threat of climate change. Cocoa prices increased by 136% between July 2022 and February 2024, reaching an all-time high as bad weather and plant diseases ravaged the crop in West Africa, where 70% of the world’s cocoa is grown. In the UK, chocolate prices have risen by 43% in just three years, highlighting how climate pressures are reshaping supply chains and consumer spending.
As the 130 billion industry is under increasing threat, we see startups and (some) major players working on ways to ensure they have access to cocoa in a climate-vulnerable future, whether that is through genetic editing, reproducing chocolate cells in large metal bioreactors, or using new sustainable methods that do not involve all cocoa beans.
CRISPR
One of the main ways chocolate producers can prepare for a climate-challenged future where cacao may not find the same hospitable conditions is to modify the actual hardiness of the cocoa bean itself through genetic engineering. This is an area where the world’s largest chocolate company, Mars, is exploring in partnership with Pairwise, a company that has made a name for itself with CRISPR-based genetically engineered foods such as mustard greens and stoneless cherries.
The company recently licensed Pairwise’s Fulcrum platform, which includes genetic editing tools and a large library that allows scientists to change plant traits like a dimmer switch, speeding up what once took decades for conventional breeding.
“At Mars, we believe CRISPR has the potential to improve crops in ways that support and strengthen global supply chains,” said Carl Jones, Director of Crop Science at Mars. “We are focused on making CRSPR research transparent and committed to plant science that helps plants adapt to climate challenges, disease pressures and resource constraints.”
The idea is to breed cacao trees that can grow well in hot, dry, and disease-prone areas, maintaining a basic supply chain while modernizing it with advanced plant science.
Cultivated Chocolate
While Mars works to save the tree, California Cultured works to bypass it entirely. The Sacramento-based startup produces real cocoa powder by growing cacao seed coat cells in bioreactors, like cultured meat.
“What we’re doing here at California Cultured is really designing real and sustainable cocoa powder with the benefits of working without planting the whole tree and years of waiting, and the negative externalities of traditional agriculture that affect the planet,” said Dr. Steven Lang, the company’s VP of Science and Technology, on the Food Truths Podcast with Eric Schulze.
According to Lang, the way it works is that within seven days, the cells are harvested, dried, and ground into cocoa powder. The process not only avoids deforestation, but also allows California Cultured to increase its flavanol content, creating chocolate with improved cardiovascular and anti-inflammatory benefits.
“This one bioprocess produces two different products for us,” said Lang, “one with a high flavanol content, and the other with more traditional cocoa powder cosmetics.”
Other Free Cocoa Recipes
Another way to use cocoa bean DNA or make it in bioreactors is to try to stop using cocoa beans at all. This is the first approach with the likes of Planet A Foods in Germany and Win-Win in the US pursuing a “cocoa-free” chocolate formulation that uses the likes of oats, barley, carob, and sunflower seeds.
Planet A’s product, ChoViva, is already hitting the shelves in Europe. With improved plant ingredients, both Planet A and Win-Win hope to replicate the taste and mouthfeel of chocolate at a fraction of the natural cost.
There have been alternatives to chocolate, such as Perfect Day’s precision-fermented cocoa-free whey. The company, which has faced financial problems in recent years, has not made much news lately, but it has made announcements with both Nestle and Mars, which were interested in using the company’s precision fermentation technology.
The bottom line is that some big players are exploring alternatives to chocolate, but for now you have to wonder if they’re doing enough. My guess is that if some of these alternatives show enough promise, we’ll see Big Chocolate increasingly hedging its bets with acquisitions and strategic partnerships in the coming years.