When cocoa prices hit the stratosphere in December 2024, startups offering alternatives suddenly started getting some serious attention. While prices have retreated somewhat, they are not going back to where they were, and any company using large amounts of chocolate needs to have a plan in place, says Mark Golder at UK-based alt-choc startup Win-Win. “It’s the volatility that creates uncertainty and prevents them from planning properly.” As with any commodity, multiple factors are at play, from unpredictable weather in West Africa to pests and disease, illegal mining and land degradation, aging trees, and investor speculation. Throw in some ethical and environmental challenges—cacao production is associated with deforestation, a high water footprint, and child labor—and you have a perfect storm coming for chocolate, says Golder. “What we anticipate is that conventional cacao-based chocolate will become increasingly premium, and for everything else, there’s Win-Win.” AgFunderNews (AFN) caught up with Golder (MG) at the recent Future Food-Tech event in London to discuss the business model, the manufacturing setup, and the route to market. AFN: What problem is Win-Win solving? MG: There’s a crisis in cocoa. 75% of the world’s cocoa comes from two countries in West Africa, and they have been significantly affected by climate change. That’s led to a structural shortfall in the amount of cocoa the world can produce compared to the amount of chocolate the world wants to consume, and so there’s a demand across the world for something that can fill that gap. We have a team of fantastic scientists and food technologists and we are trying to make something which is indistinguishable from chocolate for most consumers. We can’t call it chocolate standards of identity in many markets specify minimum levels of cocoa-derived ingredients. But we want to make something that’s indistinguishable. What’s also important is we support the chocolate trade. I personally and passionately believe in a fair deal for cocoa farmers and the trade. But those people are suffering because of climate change, and yields are decreasing. In order for them to get a fair price, they will have to price cacao higher. And so what we anticipate is that conventional cacao-based chocolate will become increasingly premium, and for everything else, there’s Win-Win. AFN: Is Win-Win a 1:1 replacement for chocolate? MG: One of the things that the team is really proud of is that we’ve designed Win-Win so that it absolutely can work all by itself as a straight replacement. And there are some people we’re talking to who want to do that. But also, it can be blended in different ways, either in the recipe, it can be incorporated into a product design, or we can produce a hybrid version. It’s very flexible, and that does enable customers to apply Win-Win in whichever way they choose. And you’re right; you mentioned an example where, in certain situations they may be able to use some Win-Win in a recipe and the product will still contain the word ‘chocolate’ in its title because it also contains some ‘real’ chocolate. AFN: What are your core ingredients? MG: The main thing that we’re fermenting is rice right now in our commercialized product. Now, what’s important here is that what we want to deliver is not only something that tastes and works as well as chocolate, that we think will be cheaper than chocolate, but also that significantly reduces the environmental impact. Win-Win is 80% lower in carbon emissions, 80% lower in water emissions than regular chocolate. And one of the things that we’re particularly proud of is our ability to use different plant-based ingredients with our fermentation technology. That gives us the potential going forward to localize our production using certain ingredients which are abundant and low carbon impact in that market, and then use this amazing technology of fermentation to create the same great tasting Win-Win the world over. AFN: What is your manufacturing setup? MG: We use a co-man model, which is a very well understood way of working. I tend to prefer the term supply partners because the partnerships that we have are very close, very specific, and help us to scale up our production. What’s important about that is it means we can quickly develop chocolate making capacity all over the world. What’s also important about our process is the thing that we change is at the very start of the conventional chocolate making process. Conventional chocolate making also involves the fermentation of cacao. We don’t use cacao; we ferment something else. But from that point onwards, most of the processes are exactly the same. And that means that we can use existing conventional chocolate making factories, like the ones you’ve been to, which are absolutely the right facilities to be producing Win-Win. AFN: How close are you to offering a viable proposition on the key things manufacturers care about: price, availability, consistency, melt, snap, taste, functionality? MG: Really very close because that’s why they’re talking with us. On the product side, I think most people would say that it’s very hard to tell the difference between Win-Win and conventional chocolate. And certainly in the consumer testing that we’re doing, consumers say that they really enjoy Win-Win just like they really enjoy the conventional product. In terms of price, of course, we’re competitive. We’re nowhere near as scaled up as some of those operators the major chocolate producers that you mentioned. So that’s a journey that we have to be on. But we’re able to accommodate for that in the arrangements that we’re making with potential customers. In terms of the manufacturing performance in the factory, customers tell us this product works just the same way as chocolate. So whether you’re enrobing or melting or stirring in or using it as a bake stable chip in a cookie or in a brioche, it doesn’t require any changes really to their manufacturing processes. AFN: The price of cocoa went through the roof but came down again. Does that complicate things? MG: It’s a really interesting question, and of course we’re trying to provide a solution for some of the biggest food companies in the world to people around London and Berlin and Paris and elsewhere in the world who simply want to use chocolate to make products for their local market, and we do notice differences in their priorities. As you might expect, very big corporations have the resources to be able to think much further ahead to consider problems. Smaller customers sometimes less so. But what I found interesting and have learned over the last couple of years, in my time at Win-Win, where we’ve seen the price come from an all-time high to drop actually to a very low point and now going up again, is that most customers are as affected when the price is falling as they are when the price is rising. It’s the volatility that creates uncertainty and prevents them from planning properly. So we want to provide something which is consistent, reliable, stable, resilient, and helps us all focus on doing what we love, which is innovating with chocolate and creating great new products. AFN: What is your route to market? MG: I think partnerships, big and small, will be helpful for us and the others in our sector. Chocolate is a global food system, and we’re trying to react to that. All of us, not just Win-Win, and that will require all the parties in the supply chain and the sector, to some degree, to collaborate and partner up. AFN: How much progress have you made so far? MG: We’re fully up and running, fully commercialized, making the product and selling it through distributors in the UK and in Europe. AFN: Do you have an exclusively b2b business model? MG: Developing consumer products and consumer brands requires very different skill sets, experience, and resources, and my background in that area informs me that perhaps we’re better off partnering with others who are doing that, and that our job is to provide this fantastic ingredient. AFN: How challenging has it been to raise money in the current environment? MG: We’re continuing to attract people that would like to invest not just money in our business but increasingly bringing us strategic support and helping us scale up. I think that’s the thing I’m so excited about and motivated about with what we’re doing here is that this is a solution that the industry is encouraging us to seek. Further reading Cultivated Food Labs advances faba bean hull-based cocoa alternative From Taxol to cocoa: Can plant cell culture make the leap from drugs to food? 🎥 As cocoa prices swing, Kawa Project offers an upcycled alternative from spent coffee grounds Abydos Bioscience bets on bacteria to address volatile cocoa butter prices The post Mark Golder: ‘Cacao-based chocolate will become increasingly premium, and for everything else, there’s Win-Win’ appeared first on AgFunderNews.
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