ETH Zurich: Tapping into cocoa gel for better nutrition and sustainability in chocolate
10 Jun 2024 | ETH Zurich
Kim Mishra, lead author of the study and former postdoc at the Food Process Engineering group at ETH Zurich, talks to us about their cocoa-fruit chocolate that uses cocoa fruit jelly as a powdered sugar substitute and the challenges the team faced in achieving the desired “glossy feel.” He also highlights the recipe’s implications for the chocolate manufacturing industry.
Hi everyone, I'm Isha Noreen from CNS Media, journalist at Food Ingredients First.
Today I'm here to discuss an interesting innovation from researchers at ETH Zurich in Switzerland who have formulated a cocoa fruit chocolate that uses cocoa fruit jelly.
As a replacement for powdered sugar, to tell us more about the innovation we have with us Dr.
Kim Mishra, lead of R&D at Planted Foods and formerly postdoc at the Food Process Engineering Group at ETS Zurich.
Welcome, Dr.
Kim.
It's a pleasure to have you with us.
Thank you.
Thank you.
Welcome.
So Doctor Kim, what inspired you to work on replacing sugar in chocolates and why the focus on cocoa gel?
We got inspired by, a young startup named Co op who, endeavored to press some of the cocoa juice for, repurposing.
And we teamed up with the idea to even go further than the cocoa juice, namely to, get, additional, material from the pot.
And that was the inspiration to have a chocolate that harnesses the full potential of the fruit.
OK, wonderful.
And what were some of the R&D challenges that you faced by formulating the recipes and how did you overcome them?
I think the biggest challenge we're facing is that Adding accurate phases to chocolate is a no go if you want to keep the chocolate texture and quality, and it took us a while to overcome that barrier of thought, but once we started to experiment with the gels, we actually realized that This This, this rule of thumb that you should not mix water with chocolate is only partially true.
So that was the biggest barrier we had to overcome, jump or jumping over the, the thought constraints given by the industry.
OK.
And that, we also see some chocolate samples in your background.
Would you like to tell us about them?
Are they from your study?
Yes, exactly.
So you can see in the background, I, I showed chocolate masses with different amounts of cocoa jelly, and you can see from left to right how the chocolate becomes more fluid.
So if you see a crumbly texture, too much liquid is in the chocolate and it is basically destroyed, and if you see the smooth glossy circle, you, you, you see that the The cocoa mass is still a liquid and not destroyed by the jelly, and that's basically the essence of her study.
OK.
And would you like to touch upon how you achieve the proper glossy feel that we can see in the sample?
So it's all a balance of how much water you add with your jelly and how immobilized the water is.
To immobilize the water, we use The endocar powder.
Which is the dried and, and powdered endocarb layer.
And of course, as the water phase, we use the cocoa juice.
So, playing with the amount of powder you add to the juice, you can make the water more restricted from interacting with the cocoa mass, and that's , That's essentially the trick.
OK, thank you for explaining that so.
And what implications do you think the product or the new research can have for chocolate manufacturers, and how can it benefit their products?
So we, elaborated this chocolate together with Max Bellin, a chocolate producer in Switzerland.
And we could see that the chocolate is tasty and manufacturable.
However, there are certain constraints to chocolate manufacturers around the world, so you cannot just plug in this recipe and manufacture the chocolate as usual.
You have to respect some additional steps, but in general, I think this approach opens up a new field for chocolate manufacturers willing to also adapt a bit their process and play a bit.
So if you think of it as another added ingredient, you just add to your chocolate, that's not how, how you can treat this ingredient.
You really have to Control the reality of your chocolate, and once you're doing that, you, you, you open up a new field.
Another consideration chocolate manufacturers have to do is that the endocar powder is similar to the cocoa being dependent on the variety of cocoa you're cultivating and the type of drying and the type of grinding you apply.
So it's actually not just a standardized ingredient you buy.
You have to Basically establish a relationship to the to the smallholder farmers and Powder producers and of course, This industry has not been built up yet.
So I think if chocolate producers are willing to take this extra step, a whole new world awaits them, but it's not a free lunch.
Nice, nice.
And, talking about the cocoa farmers you just mentioned, how do you think the new recipe can help them and maybe providing a source of income to them?
As we all know, cocoa farmers, or cocoa comes mainly from smallholder farmers, and they're heavily dependent on the cocoa price.
And what this new approach of making chocolate does is From solely selling cocoa beans, the farmers can transition to also selling the endocarp and the pulp juice.
Hopefully, this gives a bit of a more balanced income stream to the farmers.
Basically securing them against the volatility of cocoa beans by also being able to sell the juice and the endocarp, but naturally the three streams are probably linked as they're stemming from the same fruit, but in an ideal case they could always, they could basically have a more constant revenue stream because they have 3 different products out of one fruit.
OK.
That sounds interesting.
And coming to the healthfulness of it, do you think, it is better in terms of health and you compare it to conventional chocolate?
And are there any key or differences that you want to tell us about?
So, the healthiness is always a very difficult topic.
What, what we observed with the chocolate is that you have an increased amount of of dietary fiber and a reduced amount of saturated fatty acid compared to that same chocolate made with powdered sugar.
You will probably have live a healthier life if you have an increased fiber consumption and a reduced saturated fatty acid intake.
But if you, of course, eat a little bit of chocolate every day, the benefits might not be overwhelming.
So it depends a bit.
If you're a binge chocolate eater, you will see some health benefits if you're eating a small piece of chocolate once a week.
The health benefits will be limited.
OK, wonderful.
And to wrap up this interesting chocolate conversation, what future plan do you have for the project and what market reaction are you expecting?
My future plans are, spreading this technology across the world, finding chocolate manufacturers who want to adopt this new process, trying to see if We can establish projects together with farmers where we teach them how we make this endocar powder.
That would be my, my, my vision.
Unfortunately, I, I now work in the, in the plant-based meat industry, so I have limited time available for my chocolate project.
And good luck for your future plan.
And thank you for joining us today and sharing the science of chocolate with us.
Thank you for your time.
