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  "description": "OVERVIEW: Episode 207 casts a skeptical eye at industry “plans” to address price volatility and cocoa supply chain disruptions. Did Monty Python have it right with “Run Away!?” about Big Chocolate and “the future”?",
  "path": "/pinned/a-25th-anniversary-take-the-future-of-chocolate-psc-207/",
  "publishedAt": "2026-06-04T23:33:39.000Z",
  "site": "https://thechocolatelife.com",
  "tags": [
    "@PodSaveChocolate YouTube channel",
    "Participate/Watch on YouTube",
    "Participate/Watch on LinkedIn",
    "TheChocolateLife on Facebook",
    "Participate/Watch on Facebook",
    "last episode’s focus on my journey to today",
    "Harkin-Engel Protocol",
    "Learn More About Lifetime Membership!",
    "here",
    "The Future of Cocoa is ... Chocolate | #PSC 163Episode 163 of #PodSaveChocolate will present ideas to address the past, present, and future of cocoa, suggesting ways to navigate our way out of the current crisis. To many, chocolate is not the obvious starting point, but by the end of the episode, my hope is that you will. [updated]The Chocolate LifeClay Gordon",
    "ARS 1000: The Future of Cocoa? | #PSC 160Episode 160 of #PodSaveChocolate casts a critical look at ARS 1000, a continent-wide framework for sustainable cocoa. What is its future? Will the idea spread to other cocoa-producing regions? [updated]The Chocolate LifeClay Gordon",
    "Is A Regenerative Ag Future Enough? | #PodSaveChocolateEpisode 18 of #PodSaveChocolate features a discussion of Regenerative Agriculture compared with Agroforestry and other approaches – some ancient and some modern.The Chocolate LifeClay Gordon",
    "TheChocolateLifeLIVE – The $100 Chocolate BarEpisode 76 of #TheChocolateLifeLIVE streams from 12:00~13:00 EST on Friday, December 23rd.The Chocolate LifeTheChocolateWire",
    "his post.",
    "Pod Save Chocolate Calendar and ArchiveNews, views, and conversations on topics in cocoa and chocolate streamed live to YouTube, LinkedIn, and Facebook. #PodSaveChocolate!The Chocolate LifeClay Gordon",
    "TheChocolateLifeLIVE ArchiveNews, views, and conversations on topics in cocoa and chocolate streamed live to YouTube, LinkedIn, and Facebook.The Chocolate LifeClay Gordon"
  ],
  "textContent": "🗓️\n\nThis stream begins at 10:00 ****MST**** (10:00 P****D**** T, 11:00 M****D**** T, 12:00 C****D**** T, 1:00 pm E****D**** T) on Friday, June 5th, 2026.\n\nLinks below to watch LIVE and to view the archived episode.\n\nThis ****YOUTUBE**** link is shareable.\n\nWatch and comment LIVE or view the archived episode!\n\nSubscribe (free!) to the @PodSaveChocolate YouTube channel, like this video, comment, and ****share**** this episode to help grow the #PSC community.\n\n\n                            Participate/Watch on YouTube\n                        \n\nThis ****LINKEDIN**** link is shareable.\n\nWatch and comment LIVE or view the archived episode on LinkedIn.\n\nJoin my network on LinkedIn to receive notifications and to refer business to each other.\n\n\n                            Participate/Watch on LinkedIn\n                        \n\nThis ****FACEBOOK**** link is shareable\n\nWatch and comment LIVE or view the archived episode on ****TheChocolateLife page**** on Facebook (for 30 days, then watch the archive on YouTube).\n\nFollow TheChocolateLife on Facebook to receive notifications and catch up on other content.\n\n\n                            Participate/Watch on Facebook\n                        \n\n* * *\n\n## **Episode 207 Overview**\n\nThe Wednesday, June 3rd, issue of the Confectionery News newsletter was titled: **SPECIAL EDITION: The Future of Chocolate** :\n\nAfter the last episode’s focus on my journey to today, I thought a good topic for this episode would be taking another look at “**The Future of Chocolate** ” – a topic I have covered extensively in the past. (See bookmark cards below.)\n\nThis episode of PodSaveChocolate will take its jumping-off point from these two paragraphs in The Future of Chocolate email from _Confectionery News_ …\n\n> Record-breaking prices, driven by a combination of climate shocks in West Africa, persistent structural supply constraints, and evolving regulatory pressures, have forced suppliers and manufacturers to ask a fundamental question – what does the future of chocolate look like when cocoa’s future is increasingly uncertain?\n>\n> At the heart of this conversation is resilience. For decades, the industry has grappled with well-documented challenges in cocoa production – farmer livelihoods, deforestation, ageing [sic] trees, and underinvestment in origin countries. What feels different now is the urgency. Extreme weather events are no longer anomalies but recurring disruptions, and the long-discussed fragility of global supply chains is now fully visible in price and supply-chain issues.\n\n… and the following text from the Thursday, June 4th edition of _Cocoa Radar,_ which echoes industry concerns referred to euphemistically by Confectionery News as “extreme weather events”:\n\n> Growing evidence reinforces concerns that El Niño could pose a major threat to global cocoa supplies during the 2026-27 season, particularly across key West African producing regions. [Quoting Barry Callebaut CEO Hein Schumacher warning that “developing El Niño conditions could add “**a few thousand _pounds [Sterling, £]_ per metric ton**” to cocoa prices.]\n\n### **Wt __a__ Future?**\n\nBefore we begin, I don’t think there is a “the” future for chocolate. There are possible futures, and many, if not most of them, are not so favorable when it comes to Specialty Chocolate and cocoa, because **_without Specialty Cocoa there is no Specialty Chocolate_**.\n\n> Unless **we** do something to change course.\n\nThat out of the way, I don’t think it’s unfair to say that the systemic lack of investment in cocoa farming and cocoa farmers by Big Chocolate, even before the signing of the Harkin-Engel Protocol [[1]] {«Wikipedia}, is THE major contributor to the position the chocolate industry writ large finds itself in today.\n\n[[1]]:The protocol was signed in September 2001. Joint Statements in 2001, 2005 and 2008 and a Joint Declaration in 2010 extended the commitment to address the problem. The industry's pledge to reduce child labor in Ivory Coast and Ghana by 70%, as per the Protocol, had not been met by late 2015; the deadline was again extended to 2020. 2025? Still crickets.\n\n> Volatility in the price of cocoa as a direct result of bad weather (El Niño and La Niña), exacerbated by climate change and deforestation (for _all_ reasons), was and remains, inevitable.\n\nDuring the recent spike in the price of cocoa on the futures exchanges to over $12,000/MT, _Big Chocolate learned nothing_. Well, that’s not entirely true:\n\n> They learned the **wrong** lessons.\n\nBig Chocolate thinks it can “control” the price of cocoa through a combination of:\n\n  1. Complex hedging strategies, and\n  2. Pointing fingers and laying the blame at the feet of others, and\n  3. Sticking their heads in the sand like ostriches and (to mix metaphors) crossing their fingers while ingesting large quantities of hopium that the rains, in just the right amounts, will come when it’s convenient for market soothsayers.\n\n\n\nLooking at Big Chocolate’s behavior, I am reminded of the phrase _**Run away!,**_ famously associated with the Knights of the Round Table in _Monty Python and the Holy Grail._ It is used humorously as a comedic battle cry when the knights face danger. But it’s not funny in this context.\n\n> Life is not a movie, and Big Chocolate faces an existential crisis. As do the millions of families whose lives and livelihoods depend on cocoa farming. Big Chocolate is facing multiple dangers, and they are choosing to **Run Away!**\n\nCocoa Radar explicitly names one of the dangers – El Niño. The Confectionery News article names other well-documented challenges: farmer livelihoods, deforestation, ageing [sic] trees, and underinvestment in [producing] countries.\n\nBut what Confectionery News also documents that Big Chocolate’s response is to **Run Away!** from the challenges, shambling pell-mell toward:\n\nalt.cocoa (or as I like to call them, “**choc-_alikes_** ”).\n\nPut simply, Big Chocolate companies are looking to de-risk their supply chains, and choc-_alikes_ are the pathway they are leaning into heavily.\n\n  1. All of the companies developing the technologies (cell culturing, precision fermentation, gas fermentation, etc.) can be **invested** in. Those companies are all privately-held, for the moment, but if they IPO or are acquired, early investors stand to reap windfall profits – 10x to 1000x their investment – for their shareholders (with fat bonuses for C-Suite execs) within a decade or less. _Not a penny will go to farmers._\n  2. Not one of these tech companies is headquartered in a cocoa-producing country. All of the trickle-down (_tinkle_ -down?) benefits of the investments, such as constructing facilities, will inure to the workers and companies where the construction occurs and the equipment is built. _Not a penny will go to farmers._\n  3. Ingredient supply chains are shorter. Grains, seeds, and other agricultural and chemical inputs are sourced in the US and the EU. None of those inputs is subject to the EUDR. Because supply chains are shorter, companies claim they are more sustainable. They use less water. They have a smaller carbon footprint. Those are the claims, but the technologies have not ramped up to production scale, so a life cycle assessment (LCA) done today may not accurately reflect a “cradle-to-grave” assessment when the tech is mature. _Will even a penny go to farmers? What do**you** think?_\n\n\n\n### **TL;DR**\n\nGlobally, the markets for chocolate (real and choc-alikes) and cocoa generate an estimated $250 BILLION in turnover annually.\n\nHow much has Big Chocolate earmarked for farmers to help them make this “transition”?\n\n> Jeopardy theme playing quietly in the background …\n\nThe only concrete farmer-support initiative I could find with committed funding is … The Alter Eco Foundation, with $1.5 million committed to, “help transition cacao farmers** _in its supply chain_** while driving awareness about regenerative farming.”\n\nBarry Callebaut? Mondelēz? Puratos/Belcolade? Meiji? Lindt? Hershey?\n\n_Not a penny in committed funding. Just vague promises, exactly like the ones they’ve been making (and kicking down the road) since the Harkin-Engel protocol was enacted in September 2001, about three months after I started down the path to my ChocolateLife._\n\n* * *\n\n25th Anniversary Lifetime Membership offer\n\n****I began my career**** as a professional chocolate critic, journalist, consultant, and educator 25 years ago. To help me celebrate, I hope you will consider becoming a  _****Lifetime****_ Member!\n\n****This offer is**** _****only****_****available May 25 – June 30, 2026.****\n\n\n                            Learn More About Lifetime Membership!\n                        \n\n* * *\n\n### Two Alternative Approaches\n\nIgnoring the fearmongering of Layne Kilpatrick (explored here and here), Mars is investing in genetic research that _may_ lead to varieties that are climate resilient and more resistant to diseases such as cocoa swollen shoot virus (CSSV), currently devastating yields in West Africa. However, there are huge technical, economic, political, and social barriers to the widespread planting of gene-edited cacao trees.\n\n**Another approach I ran across on LinkedIn this week** _seemed that it might be_ promising, but it did not stand up to fact-checking.\n\nKiyan FZCo (headquartered in Dubai) is engaged in R&D, production, and sale of oils, fats, and agro-commodities. Their Cocoaless™ product range consists of cocoa butter equivalents/replacements (CBEs, CBRs) for chocolate and confectionery applications made from shea, mango, and other sources.\n\n> There was some speculation on LinkedIn that those sources included _Theobroma grandiflorum_ , aka cupuaçu, but that turned out to** _not_** be the case.\n\nBut that speculation led me to explore how much _t. grandiflorum_ production there is, where _t. grandiflorum_ is (and is not) grown, and if _t. grandiflorum_ might be resistant to CSSV. I also made a detour to examine how cupuaçu butter affects the tempering and stability of cocoa butter.\n\nThat then led me down another rabbit hole (because, of course it did): _t. bicolor_.\n\nI will share what I learned about _t. grandiflorum_ and _t. bicolor_ during the episode, along with more details about my exploration of choc-_alikes_.\n\n* * *\n\n### **What We All Can Do**\n\nBecause I am who I am, I asked an LLM to conjure up some language for posting on X and Instagram.\n\nI will share some of those, and maybe an image or two that can accompany them during the episode. After the episode, I will update this post with the ones I shared, and maybe some others. (They _all_ need editing, because, well, LLMs.)\n\n* * *\n\n### _Other takes on this topic_\n\nThe Future of Cocoa is ... Chocolate | #PSC 163Episode 163 of #PodSaveChocolate will present ideas to address the past, present, and future of cocoa, suggesting ways to navigate our way out of the current crisis. To many, chocolate is not the obvious starting point, but by the end of the episode, my hope is that you will. [updated]The Chocolate LifeClay GordonARS 1000: The Future of Cocoa? | #PSC 160Episode 160 of #PodSaveChocolate casts a critical look at ARS 1000, a continent-wide framework for sustainable cocoa. What is its future? Will the idea spread to other cocoa-producing regions? [updated]The Chocolate LifeClay GordonIs A Regenerative Ag Future Enough? | #PodSaveChocolateEpisode 18 of #PodSaveChocolate features a discussion of Regenerative Agriculture compared with Agroforestry and other approaches – some ancient and some modern.The Chocolate LifeClay GordonTheChocolateLifeLIVE – The $100 Chocolate BarEpisode 76 of #TheChocolateLifeLIVE streams from 12:00~13:00 EST on Friday, December 23rd.The Chocolate LifeTheChocolateWire\n\nAlso, this post.\n\n* * *\n\n### **Future PodSaveChocolate Episodes**\n\nMost of the episodes in June will explore key moments in my journey and how they have influenced the future directions I want to take. I encourage everyone to join me for the June News/AMA episode on Tuesday, June 9th, where I'll answer your questions live!\n\n🗓️\n\nTuesday, June 9th\nJune News & AMA (about chocolate or cocoa)\n\n* * *\n\n### **#PodSaveChocolate and #TheChocolateLifeLIVE Archives**\n\n**To read an archived post** and find the links to watch archived episodes, click on one of the bookmark cards below.\n\nPod Save Chocolate Calendar and ArchiveNews, views, and conversations on topics in cocoa and chocolate streamed live to YouTube, LinkedIn, and Facebook. #PodSaveChocolate!The Chocolate LifeClay Gordon#TheChocolateLifeLIVE ArchiveNews, views, and conversations on topics in cocoa and chocolate streamed live to YouTube, LinkedIn, and Facebook.The Chocolate LifeClay Gordon\n\n⁉️\n\nAfter a year-long+ experiment, the audio-only versions of PodSaveChocolate episodes have been taken down after an end-of-year review. There were not enough listens to continue uploading episodes and paying for hosting.\n\n* * *\n\n### **Episode Hashtags**\n\n#cocoa #cacao #cacau\n#chocolate #chocolat #craftchocolate\n#PodSaveChoc #PSC\n#LaVidaCocoa #TheChocolateLife",
  "title": "A 25th Anniversary Take: The Future? of Chocolate | #PSC 207",
  "updatedAt": "2026-06-05T15:33:43.956Z"
}