Key takeaways:
- Scientists and startups are developing new ways to produce cocoa ingredients, including lab-grown cacao cells and fermentation-based chocolate flavours that don’t rely on cacao trees.
- Major chocolate manufacturers and ingredient suppliers are beginning to explore these technologies as supply volatility, climate pressure and rising cocoa prices reshape the industry.
- While alternative cocoa ingredients are gaining attention, scaling production and addressing the deeper economic challenges facing cocoa farming remain major hurdles.
Chocolate has never really been a technology story. Breakthroughs tend to arrive in the form of new flavours, premium origins or clever branding rather than scientific leaps. Cocoa itself – the raw material behind everything from artisan bars to industrial coatings – has always started in the same place: a cacao tree grown somewhere in the humid belt around the equator.
Now that assumption is being tested. Across Europe, Israel and the US, scientists and startups are testing ways to produce cocoa ingredients without growing cacao trees at all. Some are cultivating cacao cells in bioreactors. Others are attempting to recreate chocolate’s flavour chemistry through fermentation.
Until recently, these ideas were largely confined to research labs and early-stage startups. Increasingly, however, larger ingredient suppliers and chocolate manufacturers are beginning to take notice.
Earlier this year, Belgian ingredients group Puratos confirmed it plans to launch a chocolate ingredient containing cultured cocoa for professional customers in the US. The product is being developed with California Cultured, a startup specialising in cacao grown from plant cells.
Meanwhile Mondelēz International has backed Israeli cocoa-tech company Celleste Bio, Lindt & Sprüngli has invested in Swiss startup Food Brewer, and Barry Callebaut is exploring cocoa cell culture with researchers at the Zurich University of Applied Sciences.
Together, these developments suggest a new phase is emerging for alternative cocoa ingredients.
According to the International Cocoa Organization (ICCO), global cocoa production sits at roughly 4.4 million tonnes a year. Yet supply remains heavily concentrated: Côte d’Ivoire and Ghana account for more than half of global output, and more than 90% of cocoa is grown by smallholder farmers. Cocoa prices may have cooled from the record spikes of 2024, but the underlying risks haven’t gone away. Climate volatility, crop disease and ageing trees in West Africa are still putting pressure on yields.
For foodtech innovators, cocoa presents an unusually compelling target: global demand continues to rise, supply is concentrated in a handful of regions and prices have become increasingly volatile.
Growing cocoa cells in tanks
The most direct attempt to recreate cocoa involves plant cell culture. Sometimes described as lab-grown or cell-based cocoa, cultured cocoa begins with cells taken from a cacao bean. Those cells are placed in nutrient-rich liquid inside controlled fermentation systems. Given the right conditions, the cells multiply into cocoa biomass that can later be fermented, roasted and processed into chocolate ingredients.
In practice, the cells are grown in stainless-steel bioreactors similar to those used in pharmaceutical fermentation, where oxygen levels, nutrients and temperature can be tightly controlled.
California Cultured is one of the companies developing this approach. “What matters to chocolate makers is simple,” said CEO Alan Perlstein. “They need an ingredient that behaves like cocoa, tastes like cocoa and shows up when they need it.”
Perlstein says the method allows developers to work directly with the cacao tissue used to make chocolate, potentially giving them greater control over flavour and composition.
Other companies are exploring similar methods. Israel-based Celleste Bio, for example, has developed cocoa butter produced using plant cell culture that replicates the fatty acid profile and functional characteristics of conventional cocoa butter. “Our ability to produce real cocoa butter via cell culture proves that science can grow ingredients that mirror nature,” said CEO Michal Berresi Golomb.
The focus on cocoa butter is strategic. Chocolate manufacturers spend an estimated $16 billion each year on cocoa ingredients, with butter accounting for a significant share of that total and playing a critical role in chocolate’s melting behaviour, texture and snap.
Recreating chocolate without cocoa beans
Not every company in the space is trying to grow cacao cells. Another group of startups is attempting something different: reproducing chocolate flavour without using cocoa beans at all.
German company Planet A Foods has become one of the most visible players in this area. Its process applies fermentation and roasting techniques to ingredients such as oats and sunflower seeds to generate flavour compounds associated with chocolate.
The concept is rooted in cocoa chemistry. During traditional fermentation and roasting, cocoa beans undergo complex reactions that produce hundreds of aromatic molecules responsible for chocolate’s distinctive flavour. Researchers believe some of those reactions can be recreated using different raw materials.
Investor interest in the concept is also building. Planet A Foods raised $30 million in funding in 2024 to expand production capacity for its cocoa-free chocolate ingredients.
Chocolate makers take a closer look
Large chocolate companies are careful not to position these technologies as replacements for traditional cocoa farming. Most describe them instead as complementary sources of ingredients that could help stabilise supply over time.
Barry Callebaut is exploring cocoa cell culture through a partnership with the Zurich University of Applied Sciences. “Cocoa cell culture involves cultivating cocoa cells in a controlled environment, rather than growing cocoa trees in the field,” said Dries Roekaerts, president of Customer Experience at Barry Callebaut.
Howard Yano Shapiro, former chief agricultural officer at Mars, says such technologies should be seen as a form of supply-chain insurance. “It’s important to understand, technology doesn’t replace traditional farming,” he said. “It is an ‘insurance policy’ against imminent supply chain disruptions and destruction caused by pests, disease, land and water overuse – as well as those that will arise from climate and agricultural instability.”
Not everyone is convinced alternative cocoa ingredients address the deeper challenges facing the sector. Critics argue that reformulating recipes or developing cocoa substitutes may help manufacturers manage price volatility, but it does little to resolve the structural pressures affecting cocoa farming.
Amanda Archila, executive director of Fairtrade America, has warned that shifting investment toward alternatives rather than farming communities risks sidestepping the root causes of instability in the cocoa supply chain.
The industry still relies heavily on smallholder farmers, particularly in West Africa, which produces the majority of the world’s cocoa. No one expects that system to disappear.
The real challenge: scaling the science
If alternative cocoa technologies are going to move beyond pilot projects, the biggest hurdle will be scale.
Growing plant cells in sterile fermentation systems is far more complicated than producing small batches in a research lab. Industrial production requires specialised bioreactors and tightly controlled fermentation processes capable of producing consistent cocoa ingredients at commercial volumes.
Infrastructure is beginning to emerge to support that transition.
In Switzerland, The Cultured Hub – a biotechnology platform established by Bühler, Migros and Givaudan – has expanded its facilities in Kemptthal (near Zurich) to support plant cell culture production for ingredients such as cocoa and coffee. “Demand for alternative, climate-resilient ingredients is growing rapidly, and plant cell culture is emerging as a credible sourcing platform,” said Yannick Jones, CEO of The Cultured Hub.
The facility allows startups and food companies to scale production without building their own pilot plants. Ian Roberts, chief technology officer at Bühler Group, describes plant cell cultivation as “an important new frontier in sustainable food and ingredient production”, though he acknowledges that scaling these systems to industrial volumes remains a major challenge.
For the chocolate industry, that scaling question may ultimately determine whether cultured cocoa remains a laboratory concept or becomes a viable commercial ingredient. Producing small quantities in controlled environments is one thing; supplying the millions of tonnes of cocoa used by global manufacturers is another entirely.
Chocolate will continue to depend on cacao farms for the foreseeable future. But as fermentation systems and cell-culture platforms mature, the industry is increasingly exploring whether some cocoa ingredients might one day come from tanks as well as trees.
