To cope with the fall in the yields of cocoa beans, linked to global warming, Nestlé tests a method to increase the share of each fruit used to make chocolate while preserving the taste, according to the Swiss agrifood giant.
Traditionally, chocolate is made using only cocoa beans, which are transformed into chocolate after fermentation, drying and roasting, but notes Nestlé “a significant quantity” of the fruit, including the pulp, the placenta and the hull of the Cabosse, “remains largely unused”.
The group’s researchers have therefore developed a new method which consists of collecting “everything that is inside the Cabosse” in the form of wet mass, which naturally ferments and allows to release chocolate flavors. The fermented mass is then crushed, roasted and dried in flakes which can be used to make chocolate “without compromising the taste”, says the group.
“Although this project is still at a pilot stadium, we are currently exploring how to apply this innovation on a larger scale,” explains Louise Barrett, director of the Nestlé Research and Development Center for Confectionery in York in the United Kingdom.
Nestlé sees it as an advantage for farmers. With more efficient and more production cocoa extraction, they “could have more time to focus on good agricultural practices, such as size, which has demonstrated its effectiveness to improve yields”.
A fairly similar method was developed by EPFZ last year.
Prices exploded
Cocoa courses, stable for ten years, flew from early 2023. On the London market for raw materials, the ton of cocoa was worth 1900 pounds Sterling (2070 €) in January 2023, 3,800 pounds a year later and reached a higher mid-December 2024, more than 9,000 pounds (9800 €). A price multiplied by 4.5 in two years.
Since the beginning of 2025, however, the courses have reflected and the ton has been cotted some 5,600 pounds (6,100 €) on Wednesday.
The reasons for the outbreak of the lessons in recent years? Disappointed climatic conditions (torrential rains causing disease in cultures, drought) in West Africa (especially in Ivory Coast and Ghana), a cocoa belt that provides 70% of cocoa beans in the world.
Prices have slowed down the demand and pushed farmers to devote more resources to cocoa cultivation, allowing lessons to relax in recent months, with the constitution of reserves for the first time in four years.
