How to Develop a True Chocolate Analog
Interview with Adam Maxwell, CEO and Founder of Voyage Foods, Inc., and Kelsey Tenney, founding team member and VP of R &D of Voyage.
Chocolate doesn’t grow on trees. What consumers enjoy as chocolate is a product manufactured from the seed of the fruit pod of the cacao tree (Theobroma cacao) and the flavor of the seeds themselves is bitter. Only after they go through multiple different processes can they become that intoxicating product—chocolate—the perennial No. 1 flavor worldwide.
However, the availability of chocolate is under threat due to multiple factors ranging from climate shifts, cocoa blights, aging plantations, and the economic meltdowns of the past several years. It’s a given chocolate is irreplaceable…or is it? Cocoa and chocolate enhancers and extenders are helping to relieve the problem (see “Solve the Cocoa Challenge,” in the January 2025 of Prepared Foods), but they can only go so far.
A true analog, authentic in function, flavor, and texture might just be the answer. To that end, a number of companies have been working toward a chocolate analog. One of the companies taking the lead in this effort is Voyage Foods, Inc. The company, makers of a spot-on nut-free peanut butter analog, created a cocoa-free (and fully allergen-free) chocolate mimic it uses primarily as a base for its chocolate hazelnut spread analog. It also is used as a chocolate coating or filling that could readily pass a blind taste test, something it demonstrated at the 2024 Natural Products Expo West show. How did Voyage accomplish this seeming alchemy?
“[I]f we look at a raw cacao seed, we can really break down the core components of that cacao seed and understand, you know what is driving from that main material, what is driving it through to the final product,” explains Kelsey Tenney, Chief R&D scientist and co-founder of Voyage. She notes that it’s possible to find similar components, nutrients, and other compounds such as specific polyphenols that can be harnessed to create a product that tastes like chocolate that's not cacao related at all. “People have been working on this for a long time.
“When you think of the experience of chocolates, really, what are the properties of the proteins and the fibers, what are the degree of polymerization of the phenolics that are in there,” adds Adam Maxwell, Voyage CEO and Founder. “Traditional chocolate is made out of fruit seeds with that are relatively high in phenolics. Grape seeds [a primary component in the Voyage analog] are fruit seeds that are relatively high in phenolics. There’s a myriad of differences and similarities, but very much so—probably in the broadest strokes—more similar than different.”
“One of the biggest challenges with something like chocolate [is its] very complex flavor profile,” Maxwell continues. “Especially really fine chocolate has a lot of compounds that are created through different processes. We do all of our own flavor compounding from pure molecules ourselves; we have a flavor compounding lab in the plant. The more leverage points we have throughout the entire process. The more areas that we can play with, the more we can tune the final products.”
Bon Voyage
Interview with Adam Maxwell, CEO and Founder of Voyage Foods, Inc., and Kelsey Tenney, founding team member and VP of R &D of Voyage.
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