Lab-Grown Chocolate: What It Is and Who Is Behind It

Lab-grown chocolate is made from cocoa cells multiplied in steel tanks called bioreactors, not from beans harvested from cacao trees. Some of the largest chocolate companies are now investing in it. Bantu Chocolate does not use it: our cacao grows under the forest canopy on our family’s estate in Cameroon.

In 2019, Côte d’Ivoire and Ghana, which grow most of the world’s cocoa, added a Living Income Differential of $400 a tonne to every sale, meant for the farmers. Within a year, both governments were publicly accusing major buyers of finding ways around it.

Around the same time, laboratories and start-ups began promising chocolate without the tree: cacao grown from cells in steel tanks, or replaced with seeds and grains. They pitched it as the answer to deforestation, child labour and a warming climate.

Ask who it pays. A process in a steel tank can be patented; a tree on a family farm cannot. Whoever owns the tank owns the cacao, and there is no farmer left to pay, fairly or otherwise. The trouble with chocolate was never the tree. It was what the people who tend it were paid.

How is lab-grown chocolate made?

Lab-grown chocolate, also called cell-cultured or cultivated cocoa, begins with a few cells taken from a cacao bean. They are placed in steel tanks called bioreactors, fed a solution of sugars and nutrients, and kept at a controlled temperature until they multiply. The cell mass is then processed into cocoa ingredients such as cocoa butter or cocoa powder.

No tree. No soil. No harvest, no rain on the leaves, no one walking the rows at dawn.

What is the difference between cocoa-free and cell-based chocolate?

Lab-made chocolate comes in two kinds, and they are not the same thing.

• Cell-based. Cells are taken from a cacao bean and multiplied in steel tanks, fed with sugars and nutrients, then harvested, dried and processed. It is cacao, grown without the tree. Celleste Bio, California Cultured, Food Brewer and Kokomodo work this way.
• Cocoa-free. There is no cacao in it at all. Sunflower seeds, oats, grape seeds or carob are fermented, roasted and blended with fats and flavourings to taste like chocolate. Planet A Foods, maker of ChoViva, Win-Win and Voyage Foods work this way.

Neither has grown on a farm. Cocoa-free products cannot legally be called chocolate in the UK or the EU. Cell-based cacao has not yet been tested against the law.

Neither is as new a break as it sounds. Chocolate-flavoured products have long been built with as little cacao as the law allows: vanillin made from petrochemicals or wood pulp instead of the vanilla pod, vegetable fats reworked in a factory to melt like cocoa butter, and emulsifiers that let a recipe use less of it. Growing the cacao itself in a tank is the next step on the same road.

Who is behind lab-grown chocolate?

When and where it started

The idea is older than it looks. In 1980, two food scientists at Cornell University in New York filed a patent for growing cocoa bean cells in liquid to make the fats found in cocoa butter. It was granted in 1981 (US Patent 4,306,022). Four decades later, in 2021, the Zurich University of Applied Sciences in Wädenswil, Switzerland, served one of the first chocolates made from cacao cells grown in a laboratory (swissinfo.ch). Around the same time, Celleste Bio was founded in Misgav, in northern Israel (ISRAEL21c), and a second Israeli start-up, Kokomodo, works from Rehovot. Others grow cacao cells in Zurich and California, while cocoa-free “chocolate” made from seeds, grains or carob comes from Germany, Britain and the United States (Green Queen). The largest chocolate makers began testing these products in 2023 and investing soon after.

The timing is worth noticing. Côte d’Ivoire and Ghana announced the Living Income Differential in July 2019, to apply from the 2020/21 season. California Cultured was founded in 2020; Voyage Foods, Food Brewer, Planet A Foods and Celleste Bio followed in 2021. Timing alone does not prove motive: those same years saw record investment in food made without farms of every kind, and some founders cite farmers’ welfare as their reason. But as cocoa prices rose, one founder said plainly that “the business case is even clearer.”

In their own words, the reasons are supply disruption, climate risk and price volatility (FoodNavigator). What farmers are paid is not among them.

The companies investing are among the largest in the chocolate industry:

• Mondelēz International, developed milk chocolate bars with the start-up Celleste Bio using cell-cultured cocoa butter, unveiled in April 2026 (ConfectioneryNews).
• Puratos, the Belgian ingredients group, is working with the US start-up California Cultured on a cultured-cocoa product for professional chocolatiers in the US (Milling MEA).
• Barry Callebaut, the world’s largest chocolate supplier, is researching cocoa cell culture (FoodNavigator).

The same companies that buy most of the world’s cocoa are now putting money into ways to need fewer of the people who grow it.

What do critics say?

Fairtrade International, which works with cocoa farmers around the world, has set out its concerns in a public statement on lab-grown cocoa:

• More than five million farmers grow cocoa, and many already live below the extreme poverty line. Lab-grown cocoa offers them nothing.
• Farmers receive on average around 6% of the final value of a chocolate bar. Removing them does not fix that.
• Calling lab-grown chocolate “more ethical” while ignoring farmers amounts to greenwashing.
• Companies should not use lab-grown cocoa as an excuse to avoid fixing low incomes, exploitation and deforestation in their existing supply chains.

Fairtrade also wants lab-grown cocoa clearly disclosed on packs, along with the energy it takes to produce.

Fairtrade is not alone, and this is not one continent’s quarrel. Growers on both sides of the Atlantic are saying the same thing.

In Africa, the Cocoa and Coffee Farmers Alliance Association of Africa called the industry’s investment in bioreactor cocoa an exit from farmers in June 2026, naming Cameroon among the countries it would leave behind. “We are opposed to innovation that is used as a substitute for justice,” said its president, Adeola Adegoke (Vanguard). Two months later, the Côte d’Ivoire-Ghana Cocoa Initiative, set up by the two governments that grow most of the world’s cocoa, expressed deep concern about cocoa substitutes and recipes that cut the cacao in chocolate (Financial Afrik).

In Brazil, where cacao grows under the shade of the Atlantic Forest and the Amazon, the National Association of Cocoa Producers pushed for the country’s new Chocolate Law and asked that substitutes be barred from using the words “cacau” and “chocolate” (bahia.ba). The same association has accused processors of pushing farm prices below what it costs to grow cacao, by its own estimate (Movimento Econômico). Writing in October 2026, the Brazilian grower Paulo Peixinho warned that cacao grown in tanks would weaken farmers’ bargaining power, and that what suits the industry rarely suits those who grow its raw material (Cacau & Chocolate).

Elsewhere in Latin America, where cacao was first domesticated, growers in Ecuador, Peru and Colombia have so far said little in public.

In 2023, the UN’s food and health agencies, FAO and WHO, published their first global review of cell-based food (FAO). They listed the risks stage by stage: cells taken from species never eaten before, residues of the veterinary drugs and nutrients the cells are grown in, toxins and pathogens from microbes, allergens, and microplastics from the equipment. Most, they said, are already known from ordinary food, but new ones cannot be ruled out, so each product should be judged on its own. The review covered safety alone. It said nothing of the farmers whose crops these products would replace.

How is lab-grown chocolate regulated?

The two kinds of lab-made chocolate face different rules. Cell-based cacao is a new food, so it must be proven safe before it can be sold. Cocoa-free products are made from ingredients people already eat, so the question is not safety but what they may be called.

Cell-based cacao: approval before sale

Market	Who approves, and how	Politics and lobbying
United States	The FDA. The company files a safety dossier, known as a GRAS notice. The FDA has 45 days to accept it for review and 180 days to evaluate it, extendable twice by 90 days, ending in a “no questions” letter. Until now, companies could also declare an ingredient safe themselves. In August 2026 the FDA proposed ending that, with comments due by 9 December 2026 (Alston & Bird). California Cultured filed in 2025 (AgFunderNews).	Seven states, from Florida in 2024 to Texas in 2025, have banned lab-grown meat, and producers are suing to overturn the bans (Quartz). No state has yet acted on cacao.
Great Britain	The Food Standards Agency, with Food Standards Scotland: novel food authorisation after a safety assessment.	The government is helping companies through: a publicly funded “sandbox” runs from March 2025 to February 2027, with new guidance issued in July 2026 (Food Manufacture).
European Union, including France	The company applies to the European Commission. The European Food Safety Authority gives a safety opinion within 9 months of a valid application, the Commission drafts an authorisation within 7 months of that, and member states vote. Approved foods join the Union list with their own conditions of use and labelling (European Commission).	Italy banned lab-grown meat in 2023 (Osborne Clarke). France, Italy and Austria pushed back at EU farm ministers in 2024 in the name of their farmers (Euronews).
Switzerland	The Federal Food Safety and Veterinary Office: novel food authorisation. Europe’s first application for a food grown from cells was filed here, by Aleph Farms, in July 2023 (FoodNavigator).	Swiss cacao start-ups are going to the US first (swissinfo.ch).
Brazil	Anvisa. Since March 2024, every novel food needs a safety assessment before sale (Souto Correa).	Ranchers in Congress have filed bills to annul the rules and to halt lab-grown meat (Compre Rural).
Israel	The Ministry of Health.	Approved the world’s first cultivated beef in January 2024 (Food Safety News). Home to Celleste Bio and Kokomodo.
Singapore	The Singapore Food Agency.	In 2020, the first country to approve a food grown from cells, a chicken product.

Cocoa-free products: what they may be called

Market	To be called chocolate	Where cocoa-free stands
Great Britain	At least 35% total dry cocoa solids (Cocoa and Chocolate Products Regulations 2003).	Must be sold under another name.
European Union, including France	At least 35% total dry cocoa solids, with no more than 5% vegetable fats other than cocoa butter (Directive 2000/36/EC).	Must be sold under another name.
United States	FDA standards of identity set minimum chocolate liquor for each type, from 10% for milk chocolate to 35% for bittersweet (21 CFR Part 163).	Must be sold under another name.
Brazil	From May 2027, at least 35% total cocoa solids, with the cocoa percentage on the front of the pack (Law 15,404 of 2026).	Growers asked that substitutes be barred from the words “cacau” and “chocolate” (bahia.ba). Final rules are still being written.

One question no regulator has yet answered is whether cacao grown in a tank counts as cocoa solids at all. That answer will decide whether cell-based cacao may ever be called chocolate. Read more on what legally counts as chocolate in the UK, US and France.

Look down both tables and notice what is missing. Every rule asks whether a product is safe, or whether it may be called chocolate. None asks where the cacao grew, who grew it, or what they were paid.

When will it reach shops?

Not widely yet. The first products are aimed at professional chocolatiers in the US, with small retail launches targeted for 2027. As they arrive, the ingredient list will be the place to look. Cocoa-free products are already on shelves: in a limited-edition Lindt bar in 2023, and in 2026 in snacks from Nestlé and Mars (FoodNavigator).

The best case for lab-grown chocolate

It deserves a fair hearing. Cocoa is one of the crops most closely tied to forest loss in West Africa, and the 2025 Cocoa Barometer sets out how far deforestation and climate pressure reach into the supply chain. A cocoa that needs no forest cleared and no good rainy season could, in principle, ease both. Its makers also argue it could steady prices.

What would change our mind? Independent figures showing lower total emissions once the energy for the bioreactors is counted, and a plan that leaves cocoa-growing families better off rather than out of work. So far, we have seen neither.

Why Bantu Chocolate keeps the farmer

We have written before about why lab-grown chocolate is not the solution to sustainable cocoa. Our view has not changed. A broken supply chain is not mended by taking the farmer out of it. It is mended by paying the farmer properly.

On our estate in Cameroon, it looks like this:

• Our cacao grows under the existing rainforest canopy, in an agroforestry system that keeps the forest standing.
• We pay about $10 a kilo for our cacao, a price worked out backwards from the Anker Living Wage for rural Cameroon. See how it compares.
• Every bar traces back to one estate, one family and one harvest.

Start with Voodoo 83%, our darkest bar, or read how to tell real chocolate from fake chocolate.