February 9, 2022

By Lynda Kiernan-Stone, Global AgInvesting Media

The cocoa industry has been long-beset with challenging issues –  economic, environmental, and social – including smallholder producers earning barely the price of a candy bar per day, climate change, deforestation, and child labor issues.

Offering a solution to all of these issues is California Cultured. Based in Davis, California, this startup focuses on manufacturing cocoa by cultivating select cocoa cells in tanks to produce products such as cocoa powder, chocolate, and cocoa butter in a sustainable, ethical, and environmentally sound way.

In support of this work, CULT Food Science Corp, an innovative investment platform focused on clean, lab-grown foods, along with Agronomics Limited and other unnamed investors, has made an undisclosed investment in the company, which is motivated to create solutions to the problems at the root of the global chocolate sector. 

“CULT is proud to support such a revolutionary venture that is aiming to be a leading catalyst in changing the global food industry for the better,” said Lejjy Gafour, president of CULT. “California Cultured’s innovative, responsible, and disruptive pursuit aligns well with our company’s ethos. We believe cell-cultured cocoa is the next step in the sustainable, safe, and ethical food production of a major global food category.”

The global chocolate industry is valued at more than $1 billion, but it relies on cocoa farmers, who are predominantly smallholders in developing countries, to continue to produce at a rapid pace. As mentioned above, these farmers largely live below poverty levels, leading them to turn to children who labor for little or no compensation. The U.S. Department of Labor’s Bureau of International Labor Affairs estimates that 2 million children in Ghana and Ivory Coast are working in hazardous conditions in the country’s cocoa farms. In many cases, these children are taken from their families at young ages, forced to harvest cocoa for years without returning home – a practice that has only become more prevalent in countries like Ghana and Ivory Coast over the past 10 years, despite initiatives to stop it. 

Furthermore, Theobroma cacao can only thrive in very specific conditions found within a 20-degree band on either side of the equator, and grown under monoculture conditions, leading to clear-cutting and complete deforestation for cocoa farms in very ecologically sensitive regions. This “slash-and-burn” approach in West African cultivation has resulted in production increasing four-fold since the 1960s, however, it’s been at the cost of 90 percent of the area’s original forests, with less than 4 percent of Ivory Coast remaining densely forested today. 

But, despite being in its infancy, and lagging behind cultured meat in scale, market penetration, and adoption, cell-cultured chocolate has real promise of resolving the damaging realities of current cocoa production. 

*The content put forth by GAI News and its parent company HighQuest Partners is intended to be used and must be used for informational purposes only. All information or other material herein is not to be construed as legal, tax, investment, financial, or other advice. GAI and HighQuest Partners are not a fiduciary in any manner, and the reader assumes the sole responsibility of evaluating the merits and risks associated with the use of any information or other content on this site.

– Lynda Kiernan-Stone is editor with GAI Media, and is managing editor and daily contributor for Global AgInvesting’s AgInvesting Weekly News and  Agtech Intel News, as well as HighQuest Group’s Oilseed & Grain News. She can be reached at lkiernan-stone@globalaginvesting.com.