Faux Cocoa's ETHICAL EDGE

Makers of imitation chocolate offer supply chains free from child labor and mass deforestation

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For thousands of years, humans have been drawn to chocolate. Its production these days, though, is linked to widespread deforestation and child labor, posing an ethical quandary for consumers. A British startup says it has the answer: a guilt-free alternative to chocolate that can be indistinguishable from the real thing.

Chocolate’s irresistible flavors depend on the fermentation of cocoa that occurs shortly after harvesting, when beans are piled under banana leaves and left for several days. In its East London facility, WNWN Food Labs Ltd. aims to replicate that process using British barley and carob from southern Europe. Squares sampled by Bloomberg Businessweek journalists were convincing imitations of cocoa-based bonbons in terms of taste, texture and appearance; a hazelnut variety was a more believable substitute than the milk chocolate one.

WNWN—pronounced “win, win” and originally derived from the phrase “waste not, want not”—uses gas chromatography-mass spectrometry techniques employed by vegan food manufacturers to analyze a particular chocolate’s flavors and aromas at the molecular level and to identify traits it wants to mimic. “The real drivers of the flavor creation, the way we tease these flavor molecules out of our plant-based substrate ingredients, is the fermentation,” says Johnny Drain, WNWN’s co-founder and chief technology officer. Other startups with similar ambitions include Munich-based Planet A Foods, which makes fake chocolate treats from fermented oats, and California Cultured Inc., which uses cacao cells to produce lab-grown chocolate in Davis, California.