Companies are developing new ways to grow cocoa and chocolate alternatives to meet demand

WEST SACRAMENTO, Calif. — Climate change is putting pressure on the rainforests where the highly sensitive cocoa bean grows, but chocolate lovers need not lose hope, say companies that are exploring alternative ways of growing cocoa or developing cocoa substitutes.

Scientists and entrepreneurs are working on ways to produce more cocoa outside the tropics, from northern California to Israel.

California Cultured grows cocoa from plant cell cultures at a facility in West Sacramento, planning to begin selling its products next year. It places cocoa bean cells in a tank of sugar water, allowing them to multiply quickly and reach maturity in a week, instead of the six to eight months required for traditional harvests, said Alan Perlstein, the company’s chief executive officer. The process no longer requires as much water or labor.

“We see demand for chocolate vastly outpacing what’s going to be available,” Perlstein said. “There’s really no other way we can see that the world could significantly increase the supply of cocoa or continue to maintain it at an affordable level without extensive environmental degradation or other significant costs.”

Cocoa trees grow about 20 degrees north and south of the equator in regions with warm weather and abundant rainfall, including West Africa and South America. Climate change is expected to dry out the land under the additional heat. So scientists, entrepreneurs and chocolate lovers are inventing ways to grow cocoa and make the crops more resilient and pest-resistant — and also produce chocolate-flavored cocoa alternatives to meet demand.

The chocolate market is huge. According to the National Confectioners Association, U.S. sales will exceed $25 billion in 2023. Many entrepreneurs are betting that demand will grow faster than cocoa supply. Companies are considering either bolstering supply with cell-based cocoa or offering alternatives made from products ranging from oats to carob that are roasted and flavored to create a chocolatey flavor in chips or fillings.

The price of cocoa rose sharply earlier this year due to demand and crop problems in West Africa caused by plant diseases and weather changes. The region produces most of the world’s cocoa.

“All of this contributes to the potential for supply instability, which is why companies that make lab-grown cocoa or cocoa substitutes are interested in ways to replace an ingredient that we know tastes like chocolate,” said Carla D. Martin, executive director of the Fine Cacao and Chocolate Institute and a professor of African and African-American studies at Harvard University.

The innovation is largely being driven by demand for chocolate in the United States and Europe, Martin said. While three-quarters of the world’s cocoa is grown in West and Central Africa, only 4 percent is consumed there, she said.

The push to produce cocoa indoors in the U.S. comes after other products, such as chicken, have already been grown in labs. It also comes as supermarket shelves are filled with the evolving snacks — which makers of cocoa alternatives say shows that people are willing to try something that looks and tastes like a chocolate chip cookie, even if the pieces contain a cocoa substitute.

They said they also hope to capitalize on growing consumer awareness of the origins of food and the efforts involved in growing it, particularly the use of child labor in the cocoa industry.

Planet A Foods in Planegg, Germany, says the flavor of mass-market chocolate comes largely from the fermentation and roasting that goes into making it, not the cocoa beans themselves. The company’s founders tested ingredients from olives to seaweed and settled on a blend of oats and sunflower seeds as the best alternative to chocolate, said Jessica Karch, a company spokeswoman. They’ve named it “ChoViva,” and it can be added to baked goods, she said.

“The idea is not to replace high-quality, 80 percent dark chocolate, but to bring a variety of products to the mass market,” Karch said.

But while some are trying to create alternative sources and substitutes for cocoa, others are trying to bolster the supply of cocoa where it grows naturally. Mars, which makes M&Ms and Snickers, has a research facility at the University of California, Davis, that aims to make cocoa plants more resilient, said Joanna Hwu, senior director of cocoa plant science at the company. The facility is home to a living collection of cocoa trees, so scientists can study what makes them resistant to disease in order to help farmers in producing countries and ensure a stable supply of beans.

“We see this as an opportunity and our responsibility,” Hwu said.

Israel is also working to boost cocoa supply. Celleste Bio takes cells from cocoa beans and grows them indoors to produce cocoa powder and cocoa butter, said co-founder Hanne Volpin. In a few years, the company expects to be able to produce cocoa independent of climate change and disease — efforts that have piqued the interest of Mondelez, the maker of Cadbury chocolate.

“We only have a small field, but eventually we will have a bioreactor farm,” Volpin said.

Similar action is being taken by the company California Cultured, which intends to apply to the U.S. Food and Drug Administration for permission to call its product chocolate, because according to Perlstein, that is what it is.

Perhaps one day it will be called brewery chocolate or local chocolate, but chocolate nonetheless, he said, because it is genetically identical even though it is not harvested from a tree.

“Basically, we see ourselves growing cocoa, just in a different way,” Perlstein said.