“Between 700 and 800.” That’s how many recipes Anna-Lena Krug and her team of German food scientists tested before arriving at a product that looked, felt and tasted like chocolate, but wasn’t. This alternative, which replaces the cocoa bean with oats and sunflower seeds, is called ChoViva. The American startup Planet A Foods is at the origin.
“The goal of ChoViva is not to completely replace chocolate,” Max Marquart, chief commercial officer of the company he co-founded with his sister Sara, told NPR. Planet A Foods targets less the – more difficult to imitate – square of chocolate than chocolate as an ingredient in a product. Max Marquart cites, for example, chocolate bars, ice cream and breakfast cereals.
The Marquarts claim to be able to produce ChoViva at the same price as chocolate, and with considerably less carbon dioxide emissions since its ingredients are not transported by container ship from a few distant countries. “Cocoa beans generally only grow in what is called the cocoa belt, in certain countries around the equator,” notes Sara Marquart. They require a very specific climate. Oats, on the other hand, grow almost anywhere where it is neither too hot nor too humid.
Because chocolate is profoundly threatened by global warming, beyond contributing to it. More than half of cocoa beans come from Ivory Coast and Ghana. These two African countries located just above the equator are bearing the brunt of extreme weather phenomena accentuated by the climate crisis. “It’s a double problem,” laments Sara Marquart. First, cocoa beans only grow in a limited region. Segundo, the plant is very sensitive to global warming.”
All the taste comes from…
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