Companies Crafting New Ways To Grow Cocoa To Keep Up With Demand

Climate change is stressing rainforests where the highly sensitive cocoa bean grows, but chocolate lovers need not despair, say companies that are researching other ways to grow cocoa or develop cocoa substitutes, Amy Taxin and Terry Chea reported for the Associated Press (AP).

Scientists and entrepreneurs are working on ways to make more cocoa that stretch well beyond the tropics.

Scientists and entrepreneurs are working on ways to make more cocoa that stretch well beyond the tropics, from Northern California to Israel. California Cultured, a plant cell culture company, is growing cocoa from cell cultures at a facility in West Sacramento, California, with plans to start selling its products next year.

The company puts cocoa bean cells in a vat with sugar water so they reproduce quickly and reach maturity in a week rather than the six to eight months a traditional harvest takes, said Alan Perlstein, the company’s chief executive.

The process also no longer requires as much water or arduous labor.

“We see the demand for chocolate monstrously outstripping what is going to be available,” Perlstein said.

“There’s really no other way that we see the world could significantly increase the supply of cocoa or still keep it at affordable levels without extensive environmental degradation or some significant other cost.”

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.

The market for chocolate is massive, with sales in the U.S. surpassing $25 billion in 2023, according to the National Confectioners Association.