A 25th Anniversary Take: The Future? of Chocolate | #PSC 207
OVERVIEW: Episode 207 casts a skeptical eye at industry “plans” to address price volatility and cocoa supply chain disruptions. Did Monty Python have it right with “Run Away!?” about Big Chocolate and “the future”?
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Episode 207 Overview
The Wednesday, June 3rd, issue of the Confectionery News newsletter was titled: SPECIAL EDITION: The Future of Chocolate:
After the last episode’s focus on my journey to today, I thought a good topic for this episode would be taking another look at “The Future of Chocolate” – a topic I have covered extensively in the past. (See bookmark cards below.)
This episode of PodSaveChocolate will take its jumping-off point from these two paragraphs in The Future of Chocolate email from Confectionery News …
Record-breaking prices, driven by a combination of climate shocks in West Africa, persistent structural supply constraints, and evolving regulatory pressures, have forced suppliers and manufacturers to ask a fundamental question – what does the future of chocolate look like when cocoa’s future is increasingly uncertain?
At the heart of this conversation is resilience. For decades, the industry has grappled with well-documented challenges in cocoa production – farmer livelihoods, deforestation, ageing [sic] trees, and underinvestment in origin countries. What feels different now is the urgency. Extreme weather events are no longer anomalies but recurring disruptions, and the long-discussed fragility of global supply chains is now fully visible in price and supply-chain issues.
… and the following text from the Thursday, June 4th edition of Cocoa Radar, which echoes industry concerns referred to euphemistically by Confectionery News as “extreme weather events”:
Growing evidence reinforces concerns that El Niño could pose a major threat to global cocoa supplies during the 2026-27 season, particularly across key West African producing regions. [Quoting Barry Callebaut CEO Hein Schumacher warning that “developing El Niño conditions could add “a few thousand pounds [Sterling, £] per metric ton” to cocoa prices.]
WtaFuture?
Before we begin, I don’t think there is a “the” future for chocolate. There are possible futures, and many, if not most of them, are not so favorable when it comes to Specialty Chocolate and cocoa, because without Specialty Cocoa there is no Specialty Chocolate.
Unless we do something to change course.
That out of the way, I don’t think it’s unfair to say that the systemic lack of investment in cocoa farming and cocoa farmers by Big Chocolate, even before the signing of the Harkin-Engel Protocol [[1]] {«Wikipedia}, is THE major contributor to the position the chocolate industry writ large finds itself in today.
[[1]]:The protocol was signed in September 2001. Joint Statements in 2001, 2005 and 2008 and a Joint Declaration in 2010 extended the commitment to address the problem. The industry's pledge to reduce child labor in Ivory Coast and Ghana by 70%, as per the Protocol, had not been met by late 2015; the deadline was again extended to 2020. 2025? Still crickets.
Volatility in the price of cocoa as a direct result of bad weather (El Niño and La Niña), exacerbated by climate change and deforestation (for all reasons), was and remains, inevitable.
During the recent spike in the price of cocoa on the futures exchanges to over $12,000/MT, Big Chocolate learned nothing. Well, that’s not entirely true:
They learned the wrong lessons.
Big Chocolate thinks it can “control” the price of cocoa through a combination of:
- Complex hedging strategies, and
- Pointing fingers and laying the blame at the feet of others, and
- Sticking their heads in the sand like ostriches and (to mix metaphors) crossing their fingers while ingesting large quantities of hopium that the rains, in just the right amounts, will come when it’s convenient for market soothsayers.
Looking at Big Chocolate’s behavior, I am reminded of the phrase Run away!, famously associated with the Knights of the Round Table in Monty Python and the Holy Grail. It is used humorously as a comedic battle cry when the knights face danger. But it’s not funny in this context.
Life is not a movie, and Big Chocolate faces an existential crisis. As do the millions of families whose lives and livelihoods depend on cocoa farming. Big Chocolate is facing multiple dangers, and they are choosing to Run Away!
Cocoa Radar explicitly names one of the dangers – El Niño. The Confectionery News article names other well-documented challenges: farmer livelihoods, deforestation, ageing [sic] trees, and underinvestment in [producing] countries.
But what Confectionery News also documents that Big Chocolate’s response is to Run Away! from the challenges, shambling pell-mell toward:
alt.cocoa (or as I like to call them, “choc-alikes”).
Put simply, Big Chocolate companies are looking to de-risk their supply chains, and choc-alikes are the pathway they are leaning into heavily.
- All of the companies developing the technologies (cell culturing, precision fermentation, gas fermentation, etc.) can be invested in. Those companies are all privately-held, for the moment, but if they IPO or are acquired, early investors stand to reap windfall profits – 10x to 1000x their investment – for their shareholders (with fat bonuses for C-Suite execs) within a decade or less. Not a penny will go to farmers.
- Not one of these tech companies is headquartered in a cocoa-producing country. All of the trickle-down (tinkle-down?) benefits of the investments, such as constructing facilities, will inure to the workers and companies where the construction occurs and the equipment is built. Not a penny will go to farmers.
- Ingredient supply chains are shorter. Grains, seeds, and other agricultural and chemical inputs are sourced in the US and the EU. None of those inputs is subject to the EUDR. Because supply chains are shorter, companies claim they are more sustainable. They use less water. They have a smaller carbon footprint. Those are the claims, but the technologies have not ramped up to production scale, so a life cycle assessment (LCA) done today may not accurately reflect a “cradle-to-grave” assessment when the tech is mature. Will even a penny go to farmers? What do you think?
TL;DR
Globally, the markets for chocolate (real and choc-alikes) and cocoa generate an estimated $250 BILLION in turnover annually.
How much has Big Chocolate earmarked for farmers to help them make this “transition”?
Jeopardy theme playing quietly in the background …
The only concrete farmer-support initiative I could find with committed funding is … The Alter Eco Foundation, with $1.5 million committed to, “help transition cacao farmers in its supply chain while driving awareness about regenerative farming.”
Barry Callebaut? Mondelēz? Puratos/Belcolade? Meiji? Lindt? Hershey?
Not a penny in committed funding. Just vague promises, exactly like the ones they’ve been making (and kicking down the road) since the Harkin-Engel protocol was enacted in September 2001, about three months after I started down the path to my ChocolateLife.
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Two Alternative Approaches
Ignoring the fearmongering of Layne Kilpatrick (explored here and here), Mars is investing in genetic research that may lead to varieties that are climate resilient and more resistant to diseases such as cocoa swollen shoot virus (CSSV), currently devastating yields in West Africa. However, there are huge technical, economic, political, and social barriers to the widespread planting of gene-edited cacao trees.
Another approach I ran across on LinkedIn this week seemed that it might be promising, but it did not stand up to fact-checking.
Kiyan FZCo (headquartered in Dubai) is engaged in R&D, production, and sale of oils, fats, and agro-commodities. Their Cocoaless™ product range consists of cocoa butter equivalents/replacements (CBEs, CBRs) for chocolate and confectionery applications made from shea, mango, and other sources.
There was some speculation on LinkedIn that those sources included Theobroma grandiflorum, aka cupuaçu, but that turned out to not be the case.
But that speculation led me to explore how much t. grandiflorum production there is, where t. grandiflorum is (and is not) grown, and if t. grandiflorum might be resistant to CSSV. I also made a detour to examine how cupuaçu butter affects the tempering and stability of cocoa butter.
That then led me down another rabbit hole (because, of course it did): t. bicolor.
I will share what I learned about t. grandiflorum and t. bicolor during the episode, along with more details about my exploration of choc-alikes.
What We All Can Do
Because I am who I am, I asked an LLM to conjure up some language for posting on X and Instagram.
I will share some of those, and maybe an image or two that can accompany them during the episode. After the episode, I will update this post with the ones I shared, and maybe some others. (They all need editing, because, well, LLMs.)
Other takes on this topic
Clay Gordon
Clay Gordon
Clay Gordon
TheChocolateWire
Also, this post.
Future PodSaveChocolate Episodes
Most of the episodes in June will explore key moments in my journey and how they have influenced the future directions I want to take. I encourage everyone to join me for the June News/AMA episode on Tuesday, June 9th, where I'll answer your questions live!
June News & AMA (about chocolate or cocoa)
#PodSaveChocolate and #TheChocolateLifeLIVE Archives
To read an archived post and find the links to watch archived episodes, click on one of the bookmark cards below.
Clay Gordon
Clay Gordon
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