Can we eat chocolate and save the planet at the same time? The answer now is yes. A young team from southern Germany has developed sustainable “chocolate” made from fermented and roasted sunflower seeds, without using a single cocoa bean.
This means making the chocolate alternative involves supply chains that are regional instead of global, transportation is therefore shorter and the environmental footprint is much smaller than when making conventional chocolate. The company, Planet A Foods, thereby addresses one of the most pressing challenges in the food industry: the declining availability of cocoa and the ecological costs of conventional chocolate production.
Sara Marquart and her brother Maximilian have won a host of business awards. ChoViva, the chocolate alternative invented by them, is considered a game changing sweet. It could make the chocolate industry independent of global and often fragile cocoa bean supply chains.
The Munich-based start-up they founded is revolutionising the confectionery industry. In an unassuming industrial estate, chief technology officer Sara is developing one patent after another. Today, she is quite busy, testing a new recipe for the chocolate alternative ChoViva, together with product developer and head chef Lukas Göldner.
