(written jointly by Arshad M. Khan and Meena Miriam Yust)
Ever since a Lindt ancestor accidentally left a chocolate
mass-rolling mixer running overnight, the family has been prominent in
the chocolate business. The result of this accident: the acidity was
gone, the taste smooth and delicious... and the Lindts made a fortune.
Two centuries later their product is still delicious and others have
contributed to chocolate's development into what we love to eat today.
The worldwide annual chocolate market itself has reached
7.5 million metric tons (2023) and is expected to grow annually at 4.6%.
It amounts to over $160 billion by 2027.
Top consumers are Switzerland, Austria, Germany, Ireland,
and the United Kingdom, with the Swiss consuming an average of 8.8 kg of chocolate per person. It is double the annual American consumption of 4.4 kg of chocolate per person.
In the industry as it is today, a significant manufacturing breakthrough has occurred. Since the beginning only chocolate seeds from inside the chocolate pod were used. The almost pumpkin-sized pod, though containing a delicious syrup plus other nutrients, had to be discarded.
Enter
Herr Mishra: Kim Mishra and his team at the Swiss Federal Institute of
Technology have discovered a way to use the whole cocoa fruit instead
of just the beans. They also eliminate sugar because all together
nature has
already made it sweet. This includes the pulp, the juice and the husk,
and the
juice, which is very sweet, is said to have a taste much like
pineapple.
Traditionally,
when only cocoa beans were utilized, the rest of the fruit was left to
rot in the fields, a practice not environmentally friendly to say the
least.
In
Mr. Mishra's method, the juice, which is 14 percent sugar, is distilled
down to form a highly concentrated syrup. This is combined with the
pulp and then mixed with the dried husk to form a very sweet cocoa gel,
and all without the use of any sugar -- an ingredient that has its own
story of cost to the environment and, sadly, slavery.
As the new method has less waste, in the language of environmentalists, it has greater environmental sustainability. Moreover, to
minimize transportation costs, the processing should be carried out at the
source, and this would generate more higher-order factory jobs for locals,
increasing well-being within the local population. Hitherto, their
participation has been more or less limited to the
lowest paying fruit-picking work.
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