Development of cellular agriculture for production of cocoa

Purpose and goal:

The aim of this project is to verify a method of production for cocoa raw material for use in chocolate production through cellular agriculture. The project´s objective is to produce a cocoa raw material with a quality high enough to produce chocolate from. The cell lines developed in the project should be suitable for use in future scale-up projects.

Expected results and effects:

The effects of this project are about creating a more sustainable cocoa industry. The production of cocoa today is unsustainable and destroys many important biotopes around the world, leads to water shortages, droughts and large emissions of greenhouse gases and fertilizers. At the same time, the demand for chocolate is increasing.

Our hope is that the results of this project will show the way towards a more sustainable production of cocoa and in the future also other vegetable foods that have a negative impact on the environment. Approach and implementation:

In the initial stage, we will isolate cells from fresh cocoa fruits. These will be cultivated in a way so that we can develop pluripotent stem cells from them (callus culture). The stem cells will then be cultivated in a suspension culture where the growth rate is optimized.

From these suspension cultures, test batches are produced where analyzes of fat content and aromatic compounds are carried out. Based on results of the analyzes, optimizations of cultivation conditions will be made. Larger test batches will be grown at regular intervals from which chocolate will be made.