Chocolate's Plan B is on the Way: Cacao-Free

Researching my article on challenges in the chocolate industry for the website The Chocolate Professor, Is Chocolate Still Recession Proof? led to my learning about a group of innovators working to create a Plan B for chocolate. I cover what I learned about these creative problem solvers in Chocolate’s Plan B is on the Way: Cacao Free, also at The Chocolate Professor.

For years now, innovative and sustainable-minded entrepreneurs have been preparing for the end of chocolate. They hope that end never arrives, but they want to be ready with versatile and satisfying chocolate alternatives that don’t rely on cacao beans to make the confections, desserts, and treats that the world loves and demands. These startups are tapping into science and food technology to create ingredients that taste, smell, and behave like chocolate.

Some are fermenting and roasting seeds and beans from locally grown crops to replicate cacao’s flavor profile with fewer carbon emissions and less water use (Voyage Foods, Plantet A Foods, Nukoko). Others cultivate cacao in labs and grow it cell-by-cell in sterile environments to produce actual cocoa in a whole new way (California Cultured, Celleste Bio…). And, yes, even carob is back in the picture in updated formats (Foreverland, Win-Win, Compound Foods).

I’m encouraged by this ingenuity and vision and invite you to discover these groundbreaking companies in this article.