Chocolate is the most popular use of cocoa, but it’s not the only one. For a truly upcycled Easter, you have to use the whole fruit! Want to know how? Come with us!
According to ABICAB, Brazilian chocolate consumption per capita is 3 kg/person/year. It’s not much, in Switzerland each inhabitant consumes three times that amount, but it’s enough for us to be the 5th largest consumer country in the world.
We love talking about Easter and chocolate since 2015, when we started (see here, here and more here), but we need to talk about a bitter side of this industry: to make chocolate, everything is discarded, only the cocoa bean is used. The peel represents 80% of the weight of the fruit, while the honey and the pulp, 10%. What the industry uses is the remaining 10%.
It takes two to three fruits to make a single chocolate bar.
According to the Upcycled Food Association, if all the cocoa harvested were used to the fullest, it would reduce the same amount of CO2 as planting 3.5 billion trees a year. An area larger than France and Germany combined.
Finally, there is the farmers income. In traditional production, they are paid only for harvesting the seeds. Upcycling provides additional income, as it promotes the sale of parts that were previously discarded.
Let’s move to the solutions for upcycled Easter!
Edible spoon
The German start-up Spoontainable produces edible spoons with cocoa and oat seed husks to replace disposable ones. Spoons are stable for up to an hour, ideal for post-dessert consumption.
Fabric
Dutch fashion designer Iris van Herpen has partnered with ice cream brand Magnum to create Magnum Vegan Dress, the world’s first vegan haute couture dress made from cocoa. Chocolate seed shells are the raw material for a 3D-printed biopolymer, finished with recycled organza and copper coating.
Beverages
What to do with cocoa pulp? Cabosse Naturals and Koa transform it in ingredients for the industry and other companies use it to produce beverages for all tastes. There is also cocoa honey, well known in the country.
Packaging
Dengo uses cocoa bean shells in its Easter egg packaging.
Cosmetics
Those who are investing in this are two Brazilian companies. Baiani uses cocoa butter residue from the production of its own chocolates to make moisturizer.
In artisanal production, after the butter is extracted, the result is not a white and pure product like the industrial one, so you have to let it decant. The clear mass goes into the chocolate while the dark part now decanted serves to hydrate the skin.
Cacaus Biocosméticos is the result of the PhD research of its founder, who studied microorganisms that cause diseases in cocoa. He was astonished by the amount of pods thrown away and decided to further study the raw material. He discovered an immense amount of bioactive compounds and, from there, finished his initial thesis and started a new project for the use of waste.
Cosmetics with cocoa waste have already passed the testing phase and patents have already been requested.
The pods’ sales increases farmers’ income and prevents the proliferation of pests in the plantation, as the witches’ broom fungus can infect the shells close to the crop and contaminate other plants.
Biochar
A Barry Callebaut transforms the fruit pods into biochar, also know as the “black gold of agriculture”. Biochar is produced in the company’s factories through the pyrolysis process, which also generates clean energy, used in the company’s own facilities and reducing its CO2 emissions, as it permanently stores carbon. Finally, biochar will be used on cocoa farms as a natural fertilizer booster, improving soil quality.
We hope that with all these inspirations, your company is ready for an upcycled Easter this year and in the coming years!
Sources: Canal Rural, Forbes, Luker Chocolate, Bake Mag, Food Ingredients First, Confectionery News, Springwise, Innovation Origins, Ekko Green, Netzero, Cosmetic Innovation, Embalagem Marca. Beverage companies: Kokojoo, Xoca, Kiukiu, Kayu, Blue Stripes, Pacha de Cacao, Kumasi Drinks, Pa’lante, Dengo, Barry Callebaut
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