Soft outside, hard centre: the delicate creation slowly liquefies on the tongue at first, then gradually begins to melt faster – the sweet covering of dark chocolate dissolves away, finally revealing a small green pistachio kernel. When chocolate melts in the mouth, it‘s a magical, almost heavenly feeling. “Only perfect cocoa delivers the perfect taste,” says Urs Liechti, Master Chocolatier at Lindt, an international chocolate maker based in Switzerland. That’s why the 18th Century Swedish naturalist Carl von Linné gave the cocoa tree – on which chocolate production entirely depends – the botanical name Theobroma cacao, which is Greek for “food of the gods”. These days, years of breeding activity have resulted in the availability of many different varieties.
The most important varieties for cocoa production are called Criollo, Forastero and Trinitario. Two of these varieties – Criollo and Trinitario – produce fine-quality cocoa and are well-known among gourmets as being the best in the world; however, their joint production represents less than five per cent of the world crop. The problem is, they are particularly vulnerable to pests and diseases. In contrast, the third variety, Forastero, is more resistant, which is why it makes up more than 80 percent of the world’s production. Its cocoa is less intense to the taste-buds, and is rather for everyday consumption.
“The condition of the beans is important for achieving the perfect taste – just as only ripe pineapples have a good flavor,” says the cocoa and chocolate expert Urs Liechti. The degree of maturation and fermentation must also be just right. This is why he and his colleagues always check samples of new shipments before purchasing. At this point though, the cocoa tastes very different from the final chocolate product: “sharp, slightly sour, and bitter – and without foreign flavors” is how Liechti describes it.
It was precisely because of this bitter taste that the Spanish conquistadors were initially unenthusiastic about the drink made from the Central American bean. The greasy beverage was apparently so far removed from being a pleasurable experience that the Pope even gave his blessing for it to be drunk during lent. This is why cocoa landed first in the pharmacy, as a bitter medicine to be taken by emaciated patients. Broader success came only when the chocolate was sweetened with sugar. These days, Europeans and North Americans are the most dedicated consumers of chocolate bars, pralines etc. The front-runners in terms of consumption include Switzerland and Germany: according to the Association of Swiss chocolate manufacturers, the Swiss population consumed an average of twelve kilograms of chocolate each in 2010, equivalent to 120 bars per person.
Cocoa – food of the Gods
But the main consuming countries of Europe and North America can’t provide the demanding growing conditions required by cocoa trees: Theobroma cacao only grows in the warmest and wettest tropical regions, between latitudes 20 degrees north and 20 degrees south. The most important producing countries today are the Ivory Coast, Cameroon, Ghana, Nigeria, Brazil, Ecuador, Indonesia and Papua New Guinea. The beans are harvested, fermented and dried by hand – a labor-intensive process.
While the coveted cocoa beans are produced mainly in Africa, South America and Asia, the major producers of chocolate and cocoa products are located in Europe and North America. Most processing of raw cocoa takes place there too. According to Caobisco, the Manufacturers’ Association, the European confectionery industry consumes about half the world’s cocoa bean production, sourcing mainly from Africa.
Speculation leads to distortion of the market
When not being used for pralines and fine chocolate, cocoa is usually used in powder form as a raw material for sauces, cookies, ice cream, chocolate mousse, puddings, chocolate drinks and other sweet products. Cocoa also serves as the basis for most confectionary glazes. Cocoa butter is formed as a by-product in the production of cocoa powder, and it is mostly used in chocolate. But cocoa butter is also used in the pharmaceutical and cosmetic industries, for example in lotions and creams: even some spa bath products contain essences of the popular bean these days.
Cocoa is traded primarily on the commodity futures exchanges in London and New York. As recently as July 2010, the cocoa price in London rose to its highest level in 33 years; in other words, the key ingredient of chocolate had risen in price by 50 percent within a year. Production (around 3.6 million tonnes of cocoa beans in 2009/2010, according to ICCO, the International Cocoa Organization) can hardly keep up with the growing demand, so the situation in the cocoa market remains tense. And the bitter taste is spreading: traders and processing companies have been complaining recently about an increase in speculation on agricultural markets, fearing that it will produce severe market distortions. Indeed, about 60 million tonnes of cocoa beans are traded every year – several times the actual global harvest, which itself is also vulnerable to various pressures. For example the export ban imposed at the beginning of 2011 by the Ivory Coast – the world’s largest cocoa supplier, with production of one million tons per year – which led to another price hike. By late February of this year, the price of cocoa had reached a peak again, at 3.81 U.S. dollars per kilo. High cocoa prices are likely to impact on consumer prices in the medium term.
For some 6.5 million farmers worldwide, cocoa is the crop that guarantees their ability to make a living. While the majority of the African harvest is bought up by Europe, Indonesia exports mainly to other Asian countries and to North and South America. “We can’t provide a substitute for the African cocoa, because the quality of our produce is not acceptable to the European market,” says Zulhefi Sikumbang, the chairman of the Indonesian Cocoa Association.
Cocoa farmers in Africa, Asia and South America are often faced with similar challenges: for Theobroma cacao is a very vulnerable tree. Serious crop losses through pests and diseases are common, and farmers must do everything they can to protect their trees. This is why they depend on pesticides in their battle against the cocoa pod borer and fungal diseases such as Phytophthora pod rot. Otherwise, they can reckon with yield losses of up to 50 percent. To increase productivity and income from their plantations, farmers in Malaysia are increasingly planting catch crops – or even moving out of cocoa production altogether: “the trend is for growing oil palm and rubber trees,” explains Teo Kee Chiong, Crop Manager for Plantations with Bayer CropScience Malaysia. Overall, the cultivation of cocoa in Malaysia has fallen steadily from a peak of 414,000 hectares in 1989 to around 20,000 hectares in 2010. The reasons for this include low prices on the world market and a growing labor shortage. More and more cocoa must therefore be imported for further processing, according to Kee Chiong. These days, more than 70 percent of the cocoa beans that are processed in Malaysia come from plantations in Indonesia.
Susceptible to pests and diseases
According to Final Prajnanta, Head of Marketing at Bayer CropScience in Jakarta, Indonesia, his country is the second largest producer of cocoa in the world behind the Ivory Coast. Ninety percent of the cocoa area there is cultivated by small farmers – a total of 1.6 million hectares in 2009, grown mainly in Sulawesi and Sumatra. But the Indonesians themselves consume on average only 600 grams per person per year. “While about 10 percent of cocoa production stays with our local chocolate producers, 90 percent is exported,” reports Prajnanta. In 2009, a disaster hit the farmers: the entire harvest from 70,000 hectares of cocoa was lost either to moths, or to fungal diseases; on a further 235,000 hectares, the harvest shrank by about a half.
This is why it would be helpful to have plants with stronger resistance. But researchers have long considered cocoa an ‘orphan crop’, a sort of poor relation among agricultural plants: compared with other crops, such as cereals and rice, it has received comparatively little scientific attention. Nevertheless, two research groups independently announced the sequencing of the Theobroma genome in 2010. This means that researchers can now look for the sections of the genome that determine the low resistance of Theobroma cacao. According to the New York Times, some scientists are even optimistic that applying genetic breeding expertise to cocoa could bring about a five-fold increase in yield per hectare. If this were ever realized, it would ease the situation on the world market – so that melt-in-the-mouth chocolate can be savored again without leaving a bitter taste on the tongue.
