Mondelez pilots chocolates with cell cultured cocoa butter

Mondelez International produces nearly a dozen chocolate bars using cell cultured cocoa butter manufactured by Celleste Bio.

Launched in 2022, Celleste Bio is a food technology company developing cocoa ingredients through proprietary cell suspension culture technology. The company claims its patented platform produces chocolate-grade cocoa butter that is bio-identical to conventionally sourced cocoa butter.

“Building a resilient supply chain means being able to produce at commercial volumes while offsetting disruptions caused by climate change, deforestation and resource scarcity,” said Celleste’s chief technical and scientific officer Hanne Volpin, PhD. “We are on track to produce 1 ton of cocoa butter annually in a 1000 L bioreactor from a single bean – which would otherwise require about a hectare of cocoa trees. To that end, we’ve curated a very robust bank of multiple cocoa bean varietals we can use to grow, test and scale material without ever having to cut down a single tree in the rainforest.”

To date, Celleste Bio has raised US$5.6 million from Supply Change Capital, Trendlines, Barrel Ventures, non-dilutive grants, etc. Mondelez is a strategic and design partner too.