an obvious one. what most people don t realise about cocoa and chocolate is that about 70% of it is produced in just two countries in west africa, ghana and ivory coast, in a way that involves outsized water consumption, so about 20,000 litres of water per kilo, and that s way more than beef or soy or avocados. and there are issues with labour in those parts of the world. at a conservative estimate, it s thought that 1.5 million children are on these cacao farms, working with their families, predominantly. is this, however, not taking away income from countries that really need it? those countries do need that income and those hardworking farmers need to be supported. but the state of the current cacao and chocolate industry is such that those people are working on a dollar or less a day, and it s not an equitable trade. so, this isjohnny s story. i grew up in birmingham near the cadbury s chocolate factory, so sometimes we could smell the roasting beans, and it was delicious. so i ve
that s science resulting in a mixture containing 15% less sugar than its chocolate equivalent. and it s full of antioxidants and flavonoids. but how does it taste? ok, that is looking particularly appetising, so i ll go for this first. right, eating on camera is always very messy. mm! absolutely delicious, but i genuinely wouldn t know that that wasn t cocoa. amazing. it tastes. i would think that was about 60 70% cocoa. that s what we re aiming at with these ones, yeah. yeah. so, my daughter, who loves a kind of cadbury s or galaxy milk chocolate, i m not sure how she d feel about it. but for someone who is into dark chocolate, wow, i genuinely can t tell the difference. what s your price point going to be like? initially, we ll go
developing the chocolate with. kinky salt. kinky salts. that s various funky salts from different places all over the world on my travels. dried shrimp. that s not in the chocolate, is it? that is not. and there s some raw cacao, which we were trying to imitate at the very start. but of all the things we try to find replacements for, cocoa may not be an obvious one. what most people don t realise about cocoa and chocolate is that about 70% of it is produced injust two countries in west africa, ghana and ivory coast, in a way that involves outsized water consumption, so about 20,000 litres of water per kilo, and that s way more than beef or soy or avocados. and there are issues with labour in those parts of the world. at a conservative estimate, it s thought that 1.5 million children are on these cacao farms, working with their families, predominantly. is this, however, not taking away income from countries
so my question to you is, do you think it s possible to create something that tasted like that chocolate without the cocoa? well, you could probably create something that s brown, sweet stuff. but if it doesn t have cocoa in, it s not chocolate, right? well, i ve been to see a man who lives on a boat who s been stirring the pot. material scientist drjohnny drain likes to wonder what things could be made of, whether it s a smartphone screen, the michelin star restaurant dishes he s created or wanting to figure out how to replace cocoa. this is the lab on the boat where the chocolate story begins. oh, wow. come on board. thank you. what s this?! so this is some of the ingredients that we started
to an inner world. yeah, i m looking at the inside of my own brain. 0h, did you find it? how dare you! 0k, what s this one? erm. oh, that s nice. that s 70% dark, isn t it? good. you know your stuff. mm hm. and this one? oh, that s very bitter. i d go 90%. yeah? yeah, you re doing well. now for the big one. there you go. oh, gosh! 0h! oh, that s 100% chocolate, isn t it? oh, that is awful. you did volunteer to be the one to eat the chocolate. tastes like tarmac. cocoa is, of course, the main ingredient of chocolate, and it does have its impact on the environment as well as the communities that harvest it. so my question to you is, do you think it s possible to create something that tasted like that chocolate without the cocoa? well, you could probably