Cacao beans have uses that go beyond being the base ingredient of our hot chocolate mixes or the traditional Easter treats to hide in the garden.
Today, cacao beans are processed in all sorts of ways to make the most of every part of the bean.
Here are a few examples of how the waste created from their processing gets used.
Have you heard of mucilage? It's the whitish pulp that surrounds fresh beans – and the South American workers who harvest the pods have long been used to sucking this white material like candy.
There are now several ways to make use of this raw material. First, as cacao water. A simple cold extraction process produces a juice with a tangy taste that is rich in antioxidants and theobromine, an energizer similar to caffeine.
According to the American CEO of the Blue Stripes brand, a 30-cl carton of cacao water has twice the antioxidant power of a handful of blueberries.
This new drink is really only at the beginning of its story, but it already seems to be on the road to success.
At the end of 2021, chocolate giant Barry Callebaut announced that it had spotted a new opportunity by launching its very first functional beverage, made from cacaofruit.
In the world of pastry, mucilage is a novel ingredient that some top chefs are experimenting with.
Its fruity flavour has serious potential for creating a new kind of chocolate dessert.
At the Four Seasons George V hotel in Paris, the young prodigy Michaël Bartocetti sources it from Vietnam.
In Ecuador, an architectural project aims to build an eco-village made up of sustainable buildings constructed from recycled cacao bean waste.
This raw material gets fed into 3D printers to produce fibers capable of constructing buildings in an area traditionally used for cacao cultivation.
Ecuadorian brand Muze Cacao is a partner for this vast project.
In Côte d'Ivoire, the leading cacao-producing country, an artisan chocolatier (Le Chocolatier Ivoirien), who launched his brand to demonstrate that the country also had the skills to transform the raw material into chocolate bars, recently initiated a project to recycle cacao beans into powder for use in makeup foundation.
In fact, the entrepreneur is turning the technique of using cocoa powder as foundation for black skin into a commercial venture.
It's a trick that legendary makeup artist Pat McGrath spoke about when discussing the beauty industry's long journey to producing for diverse skin tones.
It's only a short step from cosmetics to perfumery.
The TechnicoFlor group, which develops aromatic compositions for perfume houses, has unveiled some surprising fragrances all based on the reuse of waste products, including cacao extracted from pods. — AFP Relaxnews
