In recent weeks, chocolate lovers have witnessed the return of two of the most dreaded words in the history of commodity headlines: cocoa shortage.
Over the last 12 months, cocoa prices have increased approximately 4 timesfollowing poor harvests in Côte d’Ivoire and Ghana, two countries that produce most of the world’s supplies. Processors have curtailed or shut down production, leaving chocolate makers without their usual supplies of cocoa butter and alcohol for making confections.
As we enter the period, the situation in the cocoa industry looks much more protracted than the easy cyclicality of the commodity market fourth 12 months in a row of poor harvests. Meanwhile, the consumption of chocolate products continues to grow, in line with global market forecasts exceed $250 billion This 12 months.
Against the background of limited supply and growing demand, we are observing an increase in investor interest in startups developing alternatives to chocolate.
At least 4 corporations developing versions of lab-made or “cocoa-free” chocolate secured funding last 12 months. The startups listed below have collectively raised over $110 million to date, most of it in the last few quarters.
What is chocolate without cocoa?
What is chocolate without cocoa? According to the funded startups, it’s essentially an ingredient that appears and tastes like chocolate but doesn’t require growing or harvesting cocoa beans.
Based in Oakland, California Travel food, the best-funded company on our list, produces cocoa-free chocolate as a part of a product range that also includes peanut butter substitutes. Currently, it sells chips and wafers that may be used as an alternative of chocolate and whose major ingredients are vegetable oil, sugar and grape seeds.
With over $63 million in funding to date, the 3-year-old Voyage has also seen some success. Earlier this month, the food and agriculture giant Cargill announced A Cooperation with Voyage to scale up production of “more sustainable alternatives to cocoa-based products.”
In addition to improving their sustainability profile, food corporations also see cocoa-free chocolate as a way to reduce supply chain risk, said Voyage’s CEO and founder Adam Maxwell.
“Ingredients like cocoa-free chocolate are much less susceptible to the price volatility that affects commodities like traditional chocolate,” he told Crunchbase News. Additionally, Voyage places particular emphasis on using “recycled ingredients that are less expensive to source and that are widely available.”
Fermented and laboratory-grown chocolate
A continent away, based in Munich Planet A. Food introduces a chocolate substitute, the so-called ChoViva. It’s a concoction made from ingredients like oats and sunflower seeds that the company says goes through a “fermentation-like process” and “tastes as good as chocolate.”
Three-year-old Planet A has raised greater than $43 million to date, including $15.4 million in a January Series A led by climate tech VC Global Fund. Like Voyage, Planet A emphasizes sustainability, being attentive to negative environmental and humanitarian impacts cocoa farming, which incorporates deforestation, freshwater depletion and reliance on child labor.
Meanwhile, West Coast lab-grown chocolate is one other concept whose time has clearly come. Startup in Davis, California California culture claims to be working on technology “that will enable the production of chocolate and coffee with identical properties, down to the last molecule, to any cup of coffee or chocolate bar you find in the store.”
In March, the company raised several rounds from top seed and agtech investors announced cooperation with a leading Japanese chocolate manufacturer Meiji for the production of chocolate products from cocoa powder derived from cell cultures.
A taste of the future
If cocoa-free chocolate startups are successful, we might be looking at a future where many of our favourite treats not come from distant farms in Africa. From a sustainability perspective, this ought to be a big improvement over the establishment. From a taste standpoint, nevertheless, it stays to be seen how well the substitutes perform against the real thing.
As a chocolate connoisseur/addict, I’d enterprise to guess that gourmet, high-cocoa dark chocolate bars could also be difficult to recreate with alternative ingredients. However, for treats comparable to chocolate chip cookies or glazed ice cream bars, where chocolate is one of several competing flavors, it might be easier to use substitutes.
Personally, I’m rooting for these newcomers to develop products that are pretty much as good as the original ones. In a world where chocolate shortages are an increasing risk, sometimes a tasty alternative could also be your only option.