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Diving overview:
- Food tech startup Celleste Bio announced that it has produced the first cell-cultured cocoa butter, a milestone for an industry struggling with high chocolate prices.
- Celleste’s lab-grown cocoa butter is “biologically identical to bean-derived cocoa butter” and has the same textural and organoleptic qualities as premium chocolate, the company says.
- Celleste has raised $15 million to date, including snack giant Mondelēz International, which has served as a strategy and design partner. The startup is building a pilot facility to scale up production of sustainable chocolate ingredients.
Dive Insights:
Rising cocoa prices have prompted Hershey and other major confectionery companies to raise chocolate prices and consider potential substitutes or lab-grown alternatives.
After reaching an all-time high at the end of 2024, chocolate prices are currently falling as supply recovers due to improved weather in Africa and expanded production in Ecuador. But climate change, crop diseases and aging trees continue to pose long-term risks to supplies, according to the International Cocoa Organization.
To provide stability, a growing number of companies are offering alternatives made from ingredients such as wheat or soy that can be used to replace a percentage of the cocoa in the chocolate making process. Ardent Mills, a joint venture of Cargill, Conagra and CHS, has launched a wheat-based solution for the industrial baking sector that can replace up to 25% of cocoa powder in cakes, brownies and cookies.
Celleste aims to go further by providing an alternative that is chemically and functionally identical to chocolate. The technology is not intended to replace traditional agriculture but rather acts as an “insurance policy” against future disruptions, Howard Yano Shapiro, Mars’ retired chief agricultural officer, said in a statement.
Cocoa butter is the main fat used to make chocolate and is essential for creating the richness and melt-in-your-mouth feel of sweet chocolate. Chocolate manufacturers spend about $16 billion annually on cocoa ingredients, with cocoa butter accounting for nearly half of that total, Celleste said.
“Cocoa butter is the most important, expensive and resource-intensive ingredient in chocolate. If we have learned anything from the past year, it is that crop replenishment solutions are important,” said Yano Shapiro.
Companies have been trying to expand cocoa production through investment or their own internal research. For example, Nestlé says it has reduced waste by developing a process that uses up to 30% more cocoa beans to produce chocolate.
