Rethinking Chocolate For A World
With Less Cocoa
As cocoa prices remain volatile, chocolate manufacturers are reinventing how chocolate is made. Through hybrid formulations, ingredient innovation and new technologies, the industry is learning to do more with less cocoa.
27 July 2026
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Dark, White and Milk Chocolate | Photo credit: Pexels
Dark, White and Milk Chocolate | Photo credit: Pexels
Chocolate as we know it has always depended on one ingredient: cocoa. Today, that relationship is beginning to change.
Driven by climate change, crop disease and increasingly fragile supply chains, cocoa has become one of the food industry’s most volatile ingredients. Prices have surged to record highs, forcing manufacturers to confront a question that would have seemed unthinkable only a few years ago: what if the future of chocolate depends not on finding more cocoa, but on learning how to use less of it?
Rather than searching for outright replacements, manufacturers are increasingly experimenting with hybrid formulations that combine cocoa with alternative ingredients, fermentation technologies and flavour innovation. The objective is not to reinvent chocolate, but to build greater resilience while preserving the taste, texture and indulgence consumers expect. Increasingly, the conversation is shifting from replacing cocoa to making every cocoa bean go further.
Beyond The Cocoa Crisis
Cacao Beans | Photo credit: Pexels
Cacao Beans | Photo credit: Pexels
The industry’s challenge extends far beyond rising prices. Extreme weather linked to climate change, ageing plantations, crop disease and tightening global supply have created unprecedented uncertainty for chocolate manufacturers. Consecutive poor harvests across Côte d’Ivoire and Ghana, which together produce around 60% of the world’s cocoa, have exposed just how vulnerable the global supply chain has become.
For manufacturers, volatile prices are making long-term planning increasingly difficult, squeezing margins while creating uncertainty across procurement, product development and retail pricing.
“If you’re a company using chocolate today, you’re in crisis,” says Mark Golder, Chief Executive Officer of UK ingredient company Win-Win. “Prices have more than quadrupled in three years. For some small businesses, that can be the difference between surviving or not.”
Yet Win-Win is not advocating cocoa’s disappearance. Instead, Golder believes the industry needs to rethink how cocoa is used. “Our product is designed so that it can work in combination with conventional chocolate if required and desired,” he explains, reflecting the growing shift towards hybrid formulations that reduce reliance on cocoa rather than eliminate it.
Consumer acceptance, however, remains paramount. As Golder puts it: “The priority is the taste of our product.” Sustainability and supply resilience may be driving innovation, but manufacturers know consumers will embrace new formulations only if they continue to deliver the indulgent chocolate experience they expect.
Win-Win’s Cocoa-Free Chocolate | Photo credit: Win-Win
Win-Win’s Cocoa-Free Chocolate | Photo credit: Win-Win
One of Win-Win’s biggest technical challenges was recreating chocolate’s distinctive melt and mouthfeel. Made from fermented and roasted barley and carob, its cocoa-free ingredient has been designed not only to replicate chocolate’s flavour, but also to behave like conventional chocolate during production. It has since been used by partners including London’s Toad Bakery and Michelin Green Star restaurant Apricity, demonstrating that it can be baked, melted and grated much like traditional chocolate. The latter serves a baked chocolate mousse with miso that contains not a single gram of cocoa.
Win-Win’s products are made using the same process as conventional chocolate and positioned as a 1-for-1 replacement; in practice, they can easily replace or be paired with conventional cocoa-based chocolate to meet foodservice requirements.
Rethinking Chocolate, Not Replacing It
Hybrid chocolate is emerging as one of the industry’s most practical responses to cocoa volatility. Rather than replacing cocoa entirely, manufacturers are combining it with complementary ingredients that deliver similar flavour and functionality while reducing overall cocoa usage.
The approaches vary, from cocoa extenders and fermented ingredients to plant-based flavour technologies. Still, they share a common goal: making chocolate production more resilient without fundamentally changing the eating experience.
Innovation Beyond the Bean
The Planet A Foods Team | Photo credit: Planet A Foods
The finished Magemono box is used to serve lunch featuring Fukuoka’s freshest delicacies | Photo credit: Karen Fong
Among the companies attracting the greatest attention is German food-tech company Planet A Foods, whose ingredient ChoViva has become one of the sector’s most closely watched cocoa alternatives.
Made from locally sourced sunflower seeds and oats using proprietary fermentation and roasting technologies, ChoViva does not attempt to replicate cocoa. Instead, it recreates many of the flavour compounds associated with chocolate while relying on ingredients that are more readily available and less vulnerable to the climate-related pressures affecting cocoa production.
ChoViva, made from sunflower seeds and oats | Photo credit: Planet A Foods
ChoViva, made from sunflower seeds and oats | Photo credit: Planet A Foods
For co-founder Sara Marquart, the innovation is less about replacing cocoa than giving manufacturers another option for navigating an increasingly uncertain future. “We’re not trying to replace chocolate. We’re trying to future-proof it,” she says. “Consumers don’t want to compromise on taste, price or sustainability.”
The ingredient has already been adopted in commercial products across Europe, reflecting growing interest in hybrid approaches that complement rather than replace cocoa.
Italian food-tech company Foreverland has taken a similar approach with Choruba, a cocoa alternative made from carob and plant ingredients. Rather than positioning it as a replacement for cocoa, the company says the ingredient is designed to help manufacturers build greater resilience into chocolate production while maintaining familiar flavour and functionality.
Elsewhere, US-based Voyage Foods is taking a science-led approach with NextCoa, developed using grape seeds and other plant ingredients. Rather than attempting to replicate cocoa directly, the company maps the molecular changes that occur as cocoa beans are transformed into chocolate before recreating those flavour compounds using alternative ingredients.
“We built Voyage Foods to rethink how the world’s favourite foods are made,” says founder and CEO Adam Maxwell. The technology is now being commercialised through a partnership with Cargill. “With Cargill, we can scale that vision, making our approach to chocolate-like foods accessible to even more manufacturers.”
For Cargill, the collaboration reflects growing demand for greater flexibility within the category. “The NextCoa line is about expanding choice, not replacing chocolate but redefining what’s possible,” says Kojo Amoo-Gottfried, Vice President and Managing Director of Cocoa and Chocolate, Cargill Food North America. “It unlocks a new way for manufacturers to create the flavours and indulgent experiences people love while building resilience into the food system.”
Taken together, these innovations suggest the industry’s focus is shifting away from alternatives for their own sake and towards giving manufacturers greater flexibility, pricing stability and supply resilience.
Making Every Gram Count
TasteTech optimises chocolate flavour by combining versatile flavour systems | Photo credit: TasteTech
TasteTech optimises chocolate flavour by combining versatile flavour systems | Photo credit: TasteTech
Innovation is extending beyond entirely new ingredients. Manufacturers are also finding ways to maximise the cocoa they continue to use through flavour optimisation and improved processing technologies.
TasteTech, a UK-based flavour specialist, is helping manufacturers enhance chocolate flavour in bakery, snack and nutrition applications, demonstrating that flavour innovation can be just as important as ingredient innovation when cocoa becomes an increasingly precious resource.
The emphasis is shifting from substitution to optimisation, ensuring that every gram of cocoa delivers maximum flavour and value.
The Industry’s Largest Players Are Taking Action
Much of the attention has gone to food-tech start-ups promising consistent, sustainable, cocoa-free alternatives. It has been reported that nearly fourteen startups are making waves in the space. We have previously covered THIC (This Isn’t Chocolate), a sweet chocolate alternative made from a waste by-product of the brewing industry and Celleste Bio, a biotech start-up creating cell-cultured cocoa; a method that removes large-scale farming from the equation while keeping the taste of real chocolate.
Now, some of the world’s largest chocolate manufacturers are also investing in ways to strengthen their supply chains and reduce their dependence on increasingly volatile cocoa supplies. Nestlé has developed a process that increases the proportion of cocoa pulp used during chocolate production, making fuller use of the cocoa fruit while reducing reliance on the bean alone. Mars, Mondelēz International, Lindt & Sprüngli and Barry Callebaut are likewise investing in regenerative agriculture, ingredient innovation and more robust sourcing strategies, recognising that securing cocoa’s future will require multiple complementary solutions rather than a single breakthrough.
Photo credit: Voyage Foods
Photo credit: Voyage Foods
A More Resilient Future for Chocolate
Chocolate is unlikely to become cocoa-free. Instead, its future may lie in using cocoa more intelligently rather than simply using more of it. Hybrid formulations, fermentation technologies and flavour innovation are expanding the industry’s toolkit at a time when resilience has become just as important as indulgence. The bars consumers unwrap a decade from now may still taste unmistakably like chocolate. Behind the scenes, however, they are likely to be made very differently.
Photo credit: Planet A Foods
Photo credit: Win-Win
Author: Michelle Yee
A content and communications professional, Michelle spent more than a decade creating content for several leading media titles including Lonely Planet Asia, Yahoo Singapore,and Wine & Dine. After leaving the media industry in 2019, she has been honing her craft at a global communications agency where she helps develop and drive publicity campaigns for brands in the consumer and corporate sector.