One way to tackle these problems is to make chocolate without using cocoa beans — the fermented seed of the cacao tree. It also makes cocoa powder and cocoa butter substitutes. “Instead of cocoa beans, we use fava beans sourced from farms across the UK and Europe, and then we ferment them in a similar way that cocoa farmers ferment their cocoa beans,” said Ross Newton, CEO of Nukoko, a UK-based startup that aims to launch on its domestic market next year. A study published this year shows it’s possible to make chocolate using only the cocoa pod, by replacing traditional sugar with a cocoa gel. “You make chocolate using only components from the fruit and not conventional crystallized sugar from sugar beets.

---

Persons: we’ve, ”, Max Marquart, shea, We’re, ” Marquart, Sara, Ross Newton, Newton, Michal Beressi Golomb, we’re, “ We’ve, “ That’s, Beressi Golomb, “ We’re, Beressi, “, “ We’d, Kim Mishra, ” Mishra Organizations: CNN, Planet, Department of Health Sciences, Technology, Swiss Institute of Technology Locations: West Africa, Ghana, Ivory Coast, Africa, Brazil, Swiss, Germany, Czech Republic, Europe, Zurich