How science is expanding chocolate’s possibilities
- Fermentation is helping developers create distinctive chocolate flavours and reproduce them more consistently.
- Cocoa powder replacers and fermented cocoa shells offer new ways to reformulate bakery products and increase fibre content.
- Cultured cacao and cocoa-free ingredients are widening sourcing options for chocolate-style coatings, fillings and inclusions.
Chocolate can apparently play tricks on your eyes as well as your appetite. Italy’s Tommaso Grollero won the 2026 World Chocolate Master title with a repertoire that included The Invisible. His creation appears harmonious from one viewpoint, then breaks into an explosion of shapes as viewers move around it – an optical illusion exploring how differently people experience taste. It captured a challenge familiar to anyone developing a chocolate biscuit or snack: finding something new to do with an ingredient consumers already love.
“The title is not decided by one striking creation alone; it recognises the consistency and clarity of a chef’s approach to taste,” said jury head Amaury Guichon. Grollero collected Best Taste and Best Design alongside the overall title at Antwerp’s Handelsbeurs, where 15 regional champions competed across four assignments under the theme ‘Play & Taste’.
“Over the past nine months, I have worked towards this moment together with my team, and I am deeply grateful to every one of them who helped make it possible,” said Grollero.
Ingredient science is opening up new possibilities for that creativity. Developers are directing cocoa fermentation towards particular flavours, applying chocolate-making processes to seeds and cultivating cacao cells in controlled systems. These approaches are opening opportunities across coatings, fillings, doughs and batters, with cost, nutrition and sourcing flexibility influencing which route manufacturers choose.
Cocoa prices have eased substantially from their record peaks, although supply volatility remains a commercial concern. The International Cocoa Organization (ICCO) recorded a daily indicator price of $5,601 per tonne on 28 October, calculated from London and New York futures quotations. Its August bulletin estimated 2024/25 production rose 8.5% to 4.733 million tonnes, while grindings fell 3.3% to 4.649 million tonnes. The market has moved beyond the most extreme price squeeze, leaving manufacturers to weigh alternatives against a changing cocoa bill.
Fermentation gives flavour a new brief
Barry Callebaut brought one of the latest developments directly to the competition’s doorstep, unveiling its Flavourcode fermentation platform alongside the World Chocolate Masters.
Fermentation helps create the precursors that develop into chocolate’s familiar flavours during subsequent processing. The chocolatier’s approach guides that stage towards defined sensory profiles, with its first product combining tropical-fruit notes, dried-fruit characteristics and a cocoa finish, according to the company.
“Flavourcode 01 is just the beginning,” said CEO Hein Schumacher, outlining ambitions for “a broader innovation platform across Gourmet and Food Manufacturing”.
European availability begins in November, with the first product developed for chefs and chocolatiers. Further work covers manufacturing applications and additional dark and milk chocolate profiles. The attraction for product developers is the ability to build flavour differentiation into the chocolate itself, then use that character across pastries, coatings and fillings.
Elsewhere, processing is helping alternative ingredients take on chocolate-like characteristics. Cargill and Voyage Foods use plant-based raw materials including grape seeds, applying processes familiar from cocoa manufacturing to create their NextCoa confectionery alternatives.
Roasting, dutching, refining and formulation all contribute to the resulting flavour and texture. Cargill expanded the offering into North America in May, adding another supply option for manufacturers developing chocolate-style products.
The application determines the opportunity as a coating has to flow and set around a biscuit, while an inclusion needs the right texture in the finished snack. Manufacturers can choose between retaining conventional chocolate, blending ingredients or developing a cocoa-free format according to the eating experience and price point they’re targeting.
Cocoa replacement reaches the mixing bowl
Cocoa powder replacement brings the technology directly into bakery recipes, where colour, flavour and texture develop alongside flour, sugar, fat and water.
Planet A Foods has extended its portfolio beyond the ChoViva chocolate alternative with Cocoa Booster, a single-ingredient powder replacer. Its application guidance recommends replacing 50-100% of cocoa powder in cookies, 40-100% in muffins and 30-70% in fat-based cream fillings, depending on the formulation.
Co-founder and chief technology officer Sara Marquart said customers had encountered alternatives that “matched only the colour but not the taste”. Her team’s brief was to develop “one ingredient that works in the recipe they already have”.
The Munich-based company reports approximately 69g fibre per 100g ingredient, compared with around 37g in its cocoa powder reference, and potential savings of up to 50% against cocoa powder. Those supplier figures give R&D teams two areas to explore together: cocoa reduction and fibre enrichment.
In a finished recipe, the substitution level determines how much either changes. At a hypothetical 5% inclusion, replacing cocoa powder with an ingredient containing 32 percentage points more fibre would add roughly 1.6g fibre per 100g mixture before baking. Developers can assess that contribution alongside water absorption, batter consistency and the texture they want to achieve.
Fermentation is also creating ingredients from parts of cacao already passing through factories. Oxford-based Fermtech uses koji fermentation to transform cocoa shells into Koji Cocoa, a fermented cocoa fibre ingredient for chocolate and bakery applications.
York Cocoa Works has introduced a bar using the ingredient in place of conventional cocoa mass, bringing that approach into a product consumers can buy. The route adds value to the existing harvest by turning a processing side stream into another source of cocoa flavour and fibre.
These developments give manufacturers several ways to adjust a formulation. Partial replacement can help retain a familiar flavour profile while changing ingredient costs or fibre content; more extensive substitution creates scope for a different product proposition.
Cocoa moves from trees into tanks
Plant cell culture takes another route, starting with cacao cells and multiplying them in controlled growing systems. The resulting cocoa material offers a potential additional source of chocolate ingredients.
Puratos is developing a professional chocolate product containing cultured cocoa with California Cultured, with US commercial availability targeted towards the end of 2026. The partnership connects cell-culture development with an established supplier’s chocolate expertise and professional customer base.
California Cultured CEO Alan Perlstein said customers need an ingredient that “behaves like cocoa, tastes like cocoa, and shows up when they need it”. He described the commercial goal as “a dependable commercial ingredient”.
That puts functionality and supply alongside flavour in the development brief. Ingredient specifications, production volumes and cost will shape how cultured cocoa enters manufacturers’ portfolios, while market access determines where products can be sold.
Conventional breeding research is advancing alongside these approaches. Penn State’s gene-editing study, published online in 2025, reported approximately 42% smaller disease lesions in laboratory leaf tests. A recent licensing agreement with AgroNetica supports further development, including field evaluation of the disease-tolerant cacao.
The growing range of technologies gives bakery and snack developers more choices about where cocoa earns its place. Distinctive fermentation profiles can support premium products, powder replacement can reshape a cake recipe, and cocoa-free coatings can provide an additional sourcing option.
Grollero’s sculpture rewarded people for changing their viewpoint. Chocolate innovation is inviting manufacturers to do something similar: examine flavour, texture and functionality individually, then decide how best to bring them together in a product people want to eat.
