Cultivated Food Labs turns faba bean hulls into a 50% cocoa replacer

What Happened

Vancouver's Cultivated Food Labs (a Gathered Foods venture) uses yeast fermentation and enzymatic treatment to convert faba bean hulls into a cocoa alternative that can replace up to half of conventional or Dutch-processed cocoa without a sensory drop-off. The company says its unit economics hold even if cocoa prices swing 10x, and it's moving from TRL 6.5 toward a commercial-scale production trial later in 2026.

Why It Matters

Cocoa prices have been extraordinarily volatile, and most cocoa-replacer plays chase flavor mimicry alone — this one is built explicitly to survive a 10x price shock in the underlying commodity, which is a supply-chain resilience pitch as much as a formulation one.

A cocoa alternative engineered to survive a 10x price shock, not just mimic the flavor.

FET's Takeaway

Capping the replacement at 50% rather than chasing full substitution is the pragmatic engineering call here — it keeps the ingredient declaration simple and sidesteps the sensory cliff that has sunk most full cocoa-replacement attempts.