Scientists Invent a Chocolate That’s More Sustainable and Healthier

Scientists from the Eidgenössische Technische Hochschule Zürich (ETH), along with professionals in the chocolate industry, have found a way to make better use of cocoa fruit to produce not only more sustainable, but also healthier chocolate.

Currently, to make chocolate, producers use the beans found inside the cocoa fruit, but not the pulp or endocarp, an outer shell inside the exterior husk of the cocoa fruit.

However, the ETH researchers, along with experts from the cocoa-recycling company Koa and the confectionery company Max Felchlin AG, realized that they could also use the pulp, its juice and even the endocarp to create chocolate with less waste. The exterior husk could then be composted or reused for fuel.

According to the study, published in the journal Nature Food, the endocarp is rich in pectin. As such, the team was able to produce a gel from the endocarp by making this material into powder and mixing it with the fruit’s pulp and juice.

The resulting gel can be used as an alternative to powdered sugar in chocolate production and results in chocolate that still tastes like a sweet treat, but comes with around 30% less saturated fat and a 20% boost of fiber compared to conventional European dark chocolate.

“Fiber is valuable from a physiological perspective because it naturally regulates intestinal activity and prevents blood sugar levels from rising too rapidly when consuming chocolate,” Kim Mishra, lead author of the study, explained in a statement. “Saturated fat can also pose a health risk when too much is consumed. There’s a relationship between increased consumption of saturated fats and increased risk of cardiovascular diseases.”

The scientists found that it was difficult to achieve the right texture for their chocolate made with the entirety of the cocoa fruit, since it could become too clumpy if it had too much of the juice from the flesh. In tests with less of the cocoa fruit juice, the resulting chocolate wasn’t sweet enough to compete with conventional chocolate.

Eventually, the researchers found that adding around 20% of their cocoa-based gel provided the right texture and taste for the resulting chocolate. As Food & Wine reported, trained panelists from the Bern University of Applied Sciences were tasked with tasting the chocolates from the study experiments to help find the right balance.

The experiments worked, as evidenced by the team filing for a patent for their chocolate recipe made from cocoa fruit. According to the scientists, the resulting recipe will allow farmers to increase their income and offer more products by using more parts of the cocoa fruit.

“This means that farmers can not only sell the beans, but also dry out the juice from the pulp and the endocarp, grind it into powder and sell that as well,” Mishra said. “This would allow them to generate income from three value-creation streams. And more value creation for the cocoa fruit makes it more sustainable.”

As Food & Wine reported, if this approach to chocolate production scales up, it could reduce the amount of land needed for producing dark chocolate. But it will require updated tools and infrastructure for farmers, like drying facilities, that will need more time and money to develop before the scientists’ chocolate can become widely available.

“Although we’ve shown that our chocolate is attractive and has a comparable sensory experience to normal chocolate, the entire value creation chain will need to be adapted, starting with the cocoa farmers, who will require drying facilities,” Mishra said. “Cocoa-fruit chocolate can only be produced and sold on a large scale by chocolate producers once enough powder is produced by food processing companies.”