Food groups develop a taste for cocoa alternatives

Skyrocketing raw material prices and ongoing pressure are pushing chocolatiers and confectioners to invest in alternative ingredients for their sweet treats.

Mondelez International, the creator of Oreo, was among the investors involved in a $4.5mn seed round earlier this month in cell-based cocoa startup Celeste Bio, while British food ingredients company Tate & Lyle also announced its partnership. Bioharvest Sciences to produce sweeteners from synthetic plant-derived molecules.

The move came as New York cocoa futures rose above $10,000 a tonne. Dizzy lineup It started a year ago. At their peak in April, prices for the key ingredient in chocolate topped $12,000 a tonne, nearly tripling since January.

Growers in West Africa, who produce more than two-thirds of the world CocoaDue to climate change, they have faced diseases and bad weather, which has hampered the production and worsened the global shortage of beans.

“If we don’t change the way we import cocoa, we won’t have chocolate in two decades,” said Michal Beresi Golomb, CEO of Celte Bio. With Cell Cacao, the industry “doesn’t need to depend on nature,” she added.

Global shortages and record prices are fueling demand from chocolate and confectionery companies as well as investment, Golomb reports. “They really care about having a sustainable, consistent supply of quality cocoa,” she says. “Everyone wants to be part of the party.”

In the year Founded in 2022, the Israeli company is one of the growing group. Beginners Using cell culture technology to bypass the need for traditional farming methods that are vulnerable to climate change and market volatility.

These innovations can also be addressed as regulatory challenges. The European Union’s new deforestation regulationIt requires certification that products such as cocoa are not grown on deforested land, putting additional pressure on supply chains and prices.

Other groups look at how to make delicious food with alternative and easily available raw materials. Last year, Finnish confectionary Fazer released a limited-edition cocoa-free “chocolate” made from local malted rye and coconut oil. Starting in 2022, the Helsinki-based company is working with VTT, the Finnish government research center, to produce cell-based cocoa pods.

“About four years ago, studies told us that climate change would affect the supply and price of cocoa,” said Annika Porr, head of the Phaser Confectionery Laboratory. “It’s come true this year.”

Elsewhere, Cargill, the world’s largest agricultural products trader, last year partnered with startup Voyage Foods to produce sustainable foods such as chocolate and nut spreads without traditional ingredients such as cocoa, peanuts and hazelnuts. It does this by using grape seeds, sunflower protein powder, sugar, fat and natural flavors.

“When we started, cocoa prices were not in the news. Most people in the US or the UK probably can’t pinpoint where cocoa is grown. And now, with the price increase, it’s easy to see why this is necessary,” said Voyage Foods CEO Adam Maxwell.

Consumers were looking for “more sustainable delights that taste great and produce no nut or dairy allergens used in cooking,” Cargill added.

Although the price of sugar – the product is not covered by EU rules – has remained relatively stable, the industry is under increasing pressure to reduce its environmental footprint and meet consumer demand for healthier options.

Tate & Lyle, once a sugar manufacturer and now experimenting. Be a sugar reducerHe is working with startup BioHarvest Sciences to develop artificial sweeteners derived from plant cells.

BioHarvest Sciences has invested $100 million over the past 17 years to develop the technology.

The partnership could help Tate & Lyle distance itself from highly processed foods, for which it has drawn scrutiny from investors and scientists.

“Our customers and their customers want something cost-effective and naturally sourced,” said Abigail Storms, senior vice president of Tate & Lyle, which sells to packaged food companies such as McVie’s biscuit maker Pladis.

While the dynamics of the commodity market are driving alternative investments, substance grown in a lab rather than on a tree or in a field is not cheap.

Celeste Bio aims to reach parity with the pre-2024 price of cocoa — about $7,000 a ton for cocoa butter and $3,000 a ton for cocoa powder — in 2027 and ramp up production, Golomb said.

Tate and Lyle want to make sure products made using the sweeteners don’t cost more than a “full-calorie or full-sugar alternative,” Storms said. “It’s all about democratizing the benefits.”

Breaking away from traditional commodity markets also means fighting red tape and changing consumer expectations. For example, Fazer Group’s cocoa-free bar cannot be called “chocolate”, instead the label “candy tablet” is used for products that contain cocoa in the name due to EU rules.

Cell-based cocoa faces a similarly tough regulatory shake-up, Porr says, with approval of the “novel food” likely to be a steeper climb in the EU than in the US.

Winning over consumers can also be challenging. Fazer Group’s preliminary research suggests that transparency about how cell-based cocoa works can help sway public opinion, Porr said, but taste and texture are the ultimate tests. “Consumers really expect it to look and taste like traditional cocoa,” she says. “There’s still work to be done.”