Planet A Foods takes the cocoa out of chocolate

Willy Wonka relied on fantastical ingredients to make his candy. Instead of magic, the German start-up Planet A Foods uses chromatography, mass spectrometry, and genetic engineering to make “chocolate” without cocoa.

Because of poor conditions linked to climate change, cacao, which is ground to become cocoa, is becoming harder to grow in countries where it is a major crop. With the supply of cocoa down in recent years, prices have risen. Planet A Foods avoids this problem by starting with sunflower and grape seeds to make its product, called ChoViva. Cofounder and Chief Technology Officer Sara Marquart says the taste is indistinguishable from that of chocolate. “It tastes very chocolaty,” she says.

In addition to being cheaper than chocolate, ChoViva has a carbon footprint only about 10% of chocolate’s, largely because the company sources its ingredients regionally when it can, Marquart says.

Marquart’s brother Max Marquart, a serial entrepreneur, is the CEO. Sara has a PhD in flavor formation pathways and more than 10 years of experience developing coffee, and he has a PhD in mechanical engineering. More than half the company’s 50 staffers are scientists working on the production—or formula—of ChoViva.

To develop ChoViva, Planet A Foods collaborated with the University of Zurich, in Switzerland, a hub for producing chocolate. Sara Marquart used the university’s analytical capabilities to investigate the flavor of cocoa at all stages of processing: cultivation, fermentation, drying, and roasting. “We traced the flavor formations that take place, and we found out that 80% of these flavors that we love in chocolate come out of the processing of cocoa and not so much out of the [cacao] bean itself,” Sara Marquart says.

Using mass spectrometry, she was able to identify key compounds in cacao beans, such as certain sugars, and determine whether these compounds are metabolized in the fermentation step or end up in the final product. She combined human sensory science with the analytical data and scientific literature to pick out the most important ones. “My bread and butter is understanding and modulating flavor formation,” Sara Marquart says.

Once she identified the key compounds responsible for cocoa’s flavor, she searched for ways to replicate them. She developed a process based on sunflower and grape seeds that mirrors traditional chocolate production. The seeds are fermented and roasted at a low temperature. Then the cocoa-replacing powder is combined with emulsifiers, flavors, and fat. “It’s like a big, big stew,” Sara Marquart says.

In chocolate, cocoa butter is the fat that provides the snap and the shine. To find an alternative, Planet A Foods analyzed hundreds of yeasts before it found a Yarrowia lipolytica strain that produces lots of fat similar to cocoa butter. The fat wasn’t a perfect match, so the company used a CRISPR tool to make the yeast generate a fat that is molecularly identical to cocoa butter, Sara Marquart says.

Named ChoViva Butter, the yeast-derived fat has a smooth texture and mouthfeel, Sara Marquart says. In addition to adding it to ChoViva, Planet A Foods is considering marketing ChoViva Butter on its own as a replacement for palm oil.

Planet A Foods is already producing ChoViva in a pilot facility near Munich with a capacity to make up to 2,000 metric tons (t) per year. The company’s plan is to expand to 10,000 t per year in 2025. In contrast, commercial chocolate producers run plants that can churn out 80,000 t per month.

The company has been helped by a doubling in the cost of chocolate since 2022 to well above $5,000 per metric ton, according to the Financial Times. The price shift is partly due to a severe drought in cacao-producing West Africa. As the retail price of chocolate has risen, consumption has fallen, creating spare capacity for making chocolate that Planet A Foods is able to rent.

Most of the ChoViva that Planet A Foods produces is used in desserts and snacks. The company is not trying to compete in the market for high-end chocolate bars. “We don’t want to be niche,” Sara Marquart says. “We want to make sustainable, affordable, and tasty products.”