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With pulp from the cocoa plant: ETH Zurich develops environmentally conscious chocolate

27/5/2024

Translation: machine translated

The Swiss university collaborated with the chocolate industry to produce it. Find out what's behind the new recipe and why it's more sustainable here.

The ETH Zurich has used unconventional ingredients for the development of a new chocolate. For the recipe, a sweetening cocoa gel is produced from the pulp and shell surrounding the cocoa beans. The university's creation is therefore a whole-fruit chocolate.

More sustainable and healthier recipe

The aim of the project, led by research director Dr Kim Mishra, was to develop a chocolate recipe. The aim was to "increase the added value of cocoa cultivation and at the same time make the chocolate healthier". The difference to the recipe for conventional chocolate is explained in this graphic.

By using the pulp and shell, more components of the cocoa plant are utilised than usual. As a result, less of the plant is disposed of or misused. The result is a more efficient cocoa harvest. This benefits farmers in West African cocoa-growing countries such as the Ivory Coast and Ghana. Extreme weather phenomena in connection with climate change have led to many crop failures and are causing cocoa prices to rise rapidly. The beans are currently more expensive than ever before

Whole-fruit chocolate not only benefits nature and cocoa farmers, but also your body. Its recipe contains less sugar and less saturated fat. The cocoa fruit also means that the chocolate contains more fibre. These are indigestible natural fibres. They are very healthy because they enter the large intestine unchanged and swell there. This keeps you full for a long time and stimulates intestinal activity.

A not-so-sweet chocolate treat

Whether the sustainable, healthier chocolate treat is also delicious? That depends on the flavour: The ETH Zurich creation has a sweet flavour - but not as sweet as conventional chocolate: "The cocoa gel was perceived as coarser on the tongue compared to sugar, because the particle size was larger," explains food scientist Dr Mishra. This also explains why it tastes less sweet: Because they are larger particles, the total number is smaller. In addition, according to Mishra, this type of sugar does not dissolve as quickly in saliva as refined sugar. However, this is still being worked on. The consistency and lustre are similar to that of traditional chocolate.

According to our purchasing department, it is not yet clear whether we will have this chocolate in the shop at some point. I'll keep you up to date. <p

Header image: serjaocarvalho/Shutterstock

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