Authors: Arshad M. Khan and Meena Miriam Yust
Ever since a Lindt ancestor accidentally left a chocolate mass rolling mixer running overnight, the family has been prominent in the chocolate business. The result of this accident: the acidity was gone, the taste smooth and delicious … and the Lindts made a fortune. Two centuries later their product is still delicious and others have contributed to chocolate’s development into what we love to eat today.
The worldwide annual chocolate market itself has reached 7.5 million metric tons (2023) and is expected to grow annually at 4.6%. It amounts to over $160 billion by 2027. Top consumers are Switzerland, Austria, Germany, Ireland, and the United Kingdom, with the Swiss consuming an average of 8.8 kg of chocolate per person. It is double the annual American consumption of 4.4 kg of chocolate per person.
In the industry as it is today, a significant manufacturing breakthrough has occurred. Since the beginning only chocolate seeds from inside the chocolate pod were used. The almost pumpkin-sized pod, though containing a delicious syrup plus other nutrients, had to be discarded.
Enter Herr Mishra: Kim Mishra and his team at the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology have discovered a way to use the whole cocoa fruit instead of just the beans. They also eliminate sugar because all together nature has already made it sweet. This includes the pulp, the juice and the husk, and the juice which is very sweet is said to have a taste much like pineapple.
Traditionally, when only cocoa beans were utilized, the rest of the fruit was left to rot in the fields, a practice not environmentally friendly to say the least.
In Mr. Mishra’s method, the juice, which is 14 percent sugar, is distilled down to form a highly concentrated syrup. This is combined with the pulp and then mixed with the dried husk to form a very sweet cocoa gel, and all without the use of any sugar — an ingredient that has its own story of cost to the environment and, sadly, slavery.
As the new method has less waste, in the language of environmentalists, it has greater environmental sustainability. Moreover, to minimize transportation costs, the processing should be carried out at the source, and this would generate more higher order factory jobs for locals, increasing well-being within the local population. Hitherto, their participation has been more or less limited to the lowest paying fruit-picking work.
It is also perhaps a way of paying back for Switzerland’s past profiting from odious colonial practices. If the country did not have colonies of its own or participate directly in slavery, its shipowners transported the slaves and its mercenaries guarded and policed colonies, according to activists like Letizia Pinoja.
She claims Geneva had a strong link to chocolate from as early as the 18th century for it was a hub for the commodity trade. And in those days commodities in general were usually associated with slavery.
All of which is far from anyone’s mind when you drop a Lindt truffle in your mouth and bite into the ball. The exploding flavors may remind you of other holidays — for it is often a Christmas treat — but certainly not of any kind of colonial past.
That is how it is … only let us all try our best to prevent governments repeating a certain kind of history.