With climate change threatening the rainforest where cocoa beans grow, the world’s infinite love for chocolate is facing challenges, but don’t panic, as scientists may have found sweet solutions.
Lab-grown chocolate offers “hope” to “chocolate fanatics” MirrorAnd, industry figures believe that these products may be healthier and more delicious than traditional chocolates.
Petri dish attracts people
“The idea of chocolate created in a petri dish is fascinating.” KCRW. Laboratory-grown chocolate is created through a procedure called cell agriculture, in which cocoa bean cells are cultured in sugary water buckets, similar to how plant cells are cultured, and then processed to produce chocolate products.
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The process means that cells can reproduce rapidly within a week, compared to the six to eight months that conventional cocoa crops usually take, and hopefully the finished product can be countered with traditional chocolate in a variety of ways.
California CEO Alan Perlstein New Scientistbecause it may have higher levels of chemicals, such as polyphenols that “may have health benefits.” It has no contaminants, such as “heavy metals taken from the soil or pesticides sprayed on crops”, but it may have a “matching to anything on the market” flavor.
Industry collapse
The development is because the price of cocoa beans is raised three times, so the “main attraction” of getting raw materials from barrels instead of trees is the “potential unlimited supply.”
The chocolate industry is “collapse”. CNN In September, it became worse as West Africa’s crops (80% of the world’s cocoa production) were produced by climate change.
To address these issues, some factories “stop or reduce” production, while leading manufacturers “raise prices and lower sales estimates.” Another problem is that cocoa is one of the “main drivers” of illegal deforestation, and there is also evidence of child labour and slavery in cocoa farms in Africa and Brazil.
New scientists say that while demand for chocolate has risen in recent years, “supply has been falling”, meaning “every chocolate company is desperate.”
Chocolate is just part of a broader trend in lab-grown food that can be sold in the UK within two years as the Food Standards Agency looks at how to “speed up the approval process for such products”. BBC.
