Cacao production without seeds in the northern California city of Davis has made inroads for cultured cocoa since a late 2024 pioneer.
By doing this, California Cultured company could help turn around volatility in cocoa prices in key sources.
The company has already made a decade-long pilot deal with Japan’s chocolate maker Meiji and is courting major chocolate giants.
In a March 29, 2025 story on Ag Funder News, the firm says it could be producing cell-cocoa by quarter 2 or 3, 2026.
Sustainability Difference?
California Cultured champions its project not just on current market volatility concerns but from a sustainability angle.
Thanks to a safe sterilization procedure for plant cells with the Food and Drug Administration (FDA)’s approval, lab cocoa is apparently contamination-free.
Furthermore, the cells will be scalable to diverse compound concentrations, which means that each cocoa product will be unique.
A major breakthrough is that culturing cocoa exempts it from lead and other disease-causing metal residues in soil.
Furthermore, cultured cocoa reduces field worker exploitation, who facilitate some $100 billion profits, as of 2024, for chocolate companies.
Enhanced Cocoa?
Given the clean quality of the new cocoa, developers are at a loss what to call products. A possible generic name under suggestion is “enhanced cocoa.”
The name fits a product that has all the nuances, flavors and tastes as well as compounds that natural cocoa possesses.
Since flavanols make cocoa unique but constitute merely 0.1% of cacao compounds, the aim is to boost the per-gram flavanol content.
Flavanol-enhanced products could range from cocoa powders to chocolate bars and even bottled beverages.
Ultimately, the California firm bets on a resilient chocolate market that will still meet demand even if cultured cocoa grows by 1,000%. To learn more on the market potential of this cell-based consumer product, skim the stats below.
Cultured Cocoa Market Statistics
The global cocoa market will attain a market worth of $67.88 billion by 2029, having grown by 4.98% since 2021, per Fortune Business Insights. While this value covers mostly traditional cocoa markets, it also implies growth in the emerging cell-culture cocoa sector.
One report already pegs cultured cocoa with a market value of $1.33 billion, as of 2024. Squared off against the entire cocoa sector value above, this represents a 1/67th part market share, significant for a start. Indeed, reports put cell-culture cocoa’s annual compounded appreciation rate at 5.89%, making it worth $2.5 billion by the mid-2030s.
What drives the growth of the cultured cocoa market?
Health consciousness is a key stimulant for the growth of the cultured cocoa market. One research puts the worldwide chocolate market value at $200 billion, as of 2024, due to rising purchases of healthy dark chocolates. Since cell-culture cocoa is non-GMO, it aligns with this market direction. Besides, the growth of cultured products in lab environments reduces deforestation and cuts water use by 90%.