Another supplier wants to make a name for itself with chocolate that does not contain granulated sugar and is therefore more climate-friendly than normal chocolate. The new chocolate was developed to market maturity at the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology (ETH) in Zurich together with the start-up Koa and the Swiss chocolate manufacturer Felchlin, for which a patent application has been filed.

The use of fruit pulp could reduce the amount of land required for cocoa cultivation. Conventional chocolate mainly uses the cocoa beans, which only make up a quarter of the weight of the whole cocoa fruit. This leads to high land requirements and corresponding greenhouse gas emissions. The carbon footprint of one kilogramme of dark chocolate is estimated at up to 46.7 kg of CO2 equivalent. The lion's share of these emissions is attributable to cultivation. “If we only need 25 per cent of the biomass obtained from our cocoa plantation, the impact is fourfold,“ says lead author Kim Mishra. The new recipe promises to reduce this environmental impact by also using the pulp.

Manufacturers add granulated sugar to conventional chocolate. The researchers working with Mishra have found a way to replace the granulated sugar with a cocoa jelly made from components of the fruit. “In our analysis of the fruit, we saw that one part of the fruit has a very high pectin content,“ reports Mishra. This is the endocarp. The sweetness is provided by the pulp. A sweet juice is extracted from the pulp. The problem: Water and chocolate do not mix. Chocolate usually clumps together when water is added to it. “Our discovery was that the water can be bound by the pectins in such a way that it can still be added to the chocolate,“ says Mishra. The fruit pulp is first dried and ground into powder. Pulp juice is then added. This is how the sweetening cocoa jelly is created.

The cocoa fruit chocolate is more environmentally friendly. It also contains 20% more fibre and 30% less saturated fatty acids than conventional dark chocolate. The new recipe could also benefit cocoa farmers. By marketing other fruit ingredients, they could diversify their income.

Developing the optimal composition was a challenge for the researchers. Too much of the fruit juice extracted from the pulp makes the chocolate clumpy, too little makes it insufficiently sweet. The scientists therefore had to find the golden mean. The result: In laboratory tests, the researchers found that they could add a maximum of 20% jelly from fruit pulp and pulp. The texture is very similar to that of conventional chocolate, but there are differences in flavour: Cocoa fruit chocolate is fruitier than ordinary chocolate.