Delicious, decadent and depleting. Climate change is impacting the production of chocolate and companies are struggling to keep up with the demand. Luckily, scientists from across the globe have offered up new ways to keep making chocolate that's tasty and affordable, even as cocoa production suffers.
Chocolate comes from the cocoa beans of cacao trees, which are largely harvested in West Africa. Unfortunately, farmers there "faced major challenges earlier this year, with crops unable to withstand the drastic changes in weather and the rise in plant diseases", said the World Economic Forum. This has led to cocoa prices rising by about 400% since the start of last year and the International Cocoa Organization predicts a 14.2% yield reduction for the 2023/2024 season.
To keep up with the global chocolate demand, many companies "have already been quietly reformulating their recipes", said Investopedia. They "are likely to add even more fillers and artificial flavours while further reducing their products' cocoa content". Others have opted to increase the use of pesticides and fertilisers to improve the cacao tree yield. But a permanent solution to increase chocolate production without lowering the product quality requires more innovation.
One study published in the journal Nature Food looks at the potential for using not just cocoa beans, but the cacao pod as a whole. "Surrounding the beans is the pulp, which yields a very sweet juice, and the endocarp, which yields fibrous powder that can turn that juice into a gel," Kim Mishra, the main author of the study, told Wired. The gel can be used as a replacement for refined sugar from beets, but there will be a "different sweetness sensation". | 
