Carob based chocolate alternatives, like discussed in the article, are already on the market (have been since the 70s!) and they don't taste very good, so they're generally relegated to diet food from health food stores.
Carob based "chocolate" is good for dog treats, but I don't see humans getting excited about it any time soon.
Go buy some from Whole Foods if you don't believe me.
While it may very well be true that alternative ingredients will play a role they could also just follow the regulations and not destroy forests to grow cocoa beans. Self-obliged regulation like fair trade has been a thing for decades now, chocosuisse will just have to live with some cuts to their profit margins and do some additional work.
Their alternative is no profit at all (those alternatives are not ready, according to the article), so the idea that they will just refuse to produce anything is pure propaganda.
With Germany in recession and being such a big market for them, and the price consciousness of German consumers, they can't raise prices all that much I'd assume. We'll see. But you are right, they will certainly try.
The difference between what cocoa farmers get paid vs what chocolate companies make selling their product is so enormous that I find this article incredibly offensive. But the chocolate industry has a very long history of this kind of shameless exploitation.
traditional cocoa-based chocolate will likely remain the majority of the market. There already exists chocolate alternatives such as carob bean and we see how well that does in the market. The significant price of cocoa will incentivize automation even further. Maybe they'll find a way to expand its growing range.
We have kind of already moved where it grows, it's indigenous to south America but most of it is grown in Africa. My assumption is that we'd see indoor / vertical farms for many temperamental plants if it becomes more cost effective, but that might be impossible for cacao which is a tree. Or perhaps someone will find a way to cross breed it with something that will help it grow elsewhere.
I've already seen cookies in the store that are praised as containing an "oat based chocolate alternative", as if replacing cocoa was something anyone asked for.
That led me down a rabbit hole of food substitutes in the German Democratic Republic. They didn't have the resources of the west so they started replacing all kind of ingredients. This went as far as putting fish meal into chocolate.
Fascinating observation from my perspective as someone who has not studied economics. But I assume that is also true of saffron, truffles, wooden pencils -- and maybe even smart phones?
Well relatively, I meant. For example, consider bananas. You can produce quite a lot of good bananas from one banana tree with relatively little work, but to produce a chocolate bar need an energy and water-intensive process and quite a lot of cacau pods.
Most cheap foods with chocolate already have little cocoa in it. The essence of chocolate is made up of three parts, a sweetener like sugar, an oil with a high melting point, and cocoa oil has one of the highest melting points out of plant oils, but is often mixed with cheaper oils like palm oil or coconut oil, which have a much higher melting point than most oils, but still not as high as that of cocoa oil. And the third part is the cocoa solids. As far as I know cocoa beans are both fermented and roasted. I think there are other plants suitable for making something similar to chocolate, turns out mango seed oil has a melting point similar to that of cocoa oil.
I could see cheap chocolate bars using a substitute that doesn't come from actual cocoa beans. But I don't think that would be possible for higher quality single-source chocolate where you get subtle flavors that depend on the soil the tree grew in.
Readit News
Carob based "chocolate" is good for dog treats, but I don't see humans getting excited about it any time soon.
Go buy some from Whole Foods if you don't believe me.
(For those unaware, almost all popular brands of chocolate are contaminated with lead and cadmium)
Their alternative is no profit at all (those alternatives are not ready, according to the article), so the idea that they will just refuse to produce anything is pure propaganda.
But yes, the refusal to produce anything is pure propaganda.
That led me down a rabbit hole of food substitutes in the German Democratic Republic. They didn't have the resources of the west so they started replacing all kind of ingredients. This went as far as putting fish meal into chocolate.
Are you sure the oat is replacing cocoa in the chocolate and not milk?
https://choviva.com/details