Delicious Chocolate Competes for Top Spot at Master Lab

It is the rarest and most exclusive chocolate I have ever had. In fact, you can’t even buy it in the store. But that’s not that special. Just a few flat drops are slightly lighter in colour than most dark chocolate sealed in small plastic bags.

It smells like dark chocolate and tastes like that, but it doesn’t make it that bitter. Above all, for me, this is definitely true.

That’s important because what I’m eating wasn’t made using cocoa beans that were sourced from trees, like regular chocolate. Rather, it was grown in glass flasks by California cultureOne of several companies aiming to mass-produce chocolate in the bat using cell culture technology.

Cultivated chocolate may be even better than the types grown on trees, according to the company’s CEO Alan Perlstein, claiming that the level of chemicals, such as polyphenols, is high. There may be health benefitsthere is no contaminants such as heavy metals extracted from soil or pesticides, pesticides sprayed on crops, or taste currently on the market. “We are trying to create flavors that are almost unruly available through traditional chocolate production,” he says.

However, for many chocolate companies, the main attraction of getting raw wood from VATS instead of wood is its potentially unlimited supply. Climate change is hitting cacao farms violently, leading to shortages. Cocoa bean prices have quadrupled after staying relatively stable for decades.

So, can chocolate grown in VAT really compete with the diversity grown on trees at the price? And will consumers accept it?

It melts…