York Cocoa Works, a York-based bean to bar chocolatier, is launching the first retail product made with Koji Cocoa™, a fermented cocoa fibre ingredient produced from cocoa bean shell.
The Koji Cocoa™ Milk Cocoa Fibre Bar is a 30g bar made with 45% cocoa-origin material and described as being “in the style of a milk chocolate bar”. It combines cocoa fibre with cocoa butter in place of conventional cocoa mass, giving consumers their first opportunity to taste Koji Cocoa™ in a finished product.
The launch addresses an increasingly important question for the cocoa industry: how can manufacturers make more food from each cocoa crop while retaining the taste, colour and enjoyment consumers expect?
Most conventional chocolate-making focuses on the cocoa bean, while other parts of the crop—including the fibrous shell surrounding the bean—remain underused as food ingredients. Fermtech, and Oxford-based food and sustainability focused biotech company, applies koji fermentation, a technique used for centuries in foods including miso and soy sauce, to transform cocoa bean shell fibre into Koji Cocoa™.
The result is a cocoa ingredient designed to help manufacturers extend the usable yield of the crops they already source, add cocoa fibre to products and reduce exposure to volatile cocoa prices.
The launch comes as cocoa producers and manufacturers face mounting pressure from climate change, crop disease, unpredictable weather and historically volatile prices. By enabling more of the existing crop to be used in food, Koji Cocoa™ offers a complementary source of cocoa flavour and colour without requiring additional cocoa cultivation.
York Cocoa Works has introduced the bar at York Food & Drink Festival late September, where founder and chocolatier Sophie Jewett gave the talk: “What happens to 92% of the cocoa pod?”, exploring how innovation can help create more value from the cocoa crop and support a more resilient and responsible cocoa industry.
Sophie Jewett, founder of York Cocoa Works, said: “As chocolate makers, we spend a lot of time thinking about the cocoa bean, but the bean represents only a small part of the cocoa pod. If we are serious about building a more responsible cocoa industry, we also need to ask what happens to everything else.
Only less than 8% of the Cocoa fruit is used in conventional chocolate making, with increasing challenges for cocoa growing communities we’re exploring more ways we can celebrate and unlock the value of the whole cocoa tree and our own cocoa shell output.
This bar is an opportunity to explore that question through chocolate. We’ve combined our chocolate-making expertise with Fermtech’s approach to fermentation to see how more of the cocoa crop can be valued – and, importantly, to give people the opportunity to taste the result for themselves.”
For Fermtech, the launch represents the move from ingredient development and customer trials into a product that consumers can buy and experience.
Andy Clayton, CEO of Fermtech, said: “Koji Cocoa is about extending the cocoa crop, not replacing it. We use fermentation to turn cocoa bean shell into a valuable, great-tasting ingredient, helping manufacturers make more from the crops they already source.
“Seeing Koji Cocoa in a finished retail product is an important commercial milestone. It demonstrates that cocoa fibre can become part of a familiar and enjoyable product while opening up a new way for the industry to respond to pressure on cocoa supply.”
The ingredient can also offer a substantially lower environmental impact. Fermtech’s lifecycle assessment indicates that Koji Cocoa™ can have a carbon footprint up to 98% lower than conventional cocoa powder when produced in the UK.*
The 30g Koji Cocoa™ Milk Cocoa Fibre Bar will be priced at £4.50 and will be available from the 5th of October through the York Cocoa Works website and at York Cocoa Works in York.
The launch will be showcased at the London Chocolate forum this October 5th where Fermtech CEO Andy Clayton will be giving a talk titled “Fermentation: Making Chocolate More Sustainable Without Changing What Consumers Love”.
Get your tickets here.
