As the Chocolate Crisis Drives Prices Up and Recipes Down, a New Method Turns Carob Tree Pulp into an Ingredient That Tastes Like Cocoa

The world is running out of cocoa, but this doesn't mean the end of chocolate.

Chocolate is no longer just a treat, it has become a climate casualty. Around the world, cocoa harvests are shrinking as droughts, erratic rainfall, and crop diseases take a toll, particularly in Africa, which supplies the majority of the planet’s cocoa. 

Moreover, as prices soar, chocolate makers are reformulating products, often at the cost of taste and texture. Faced with this growing crisis, scientists are searching for ingredients that don’t just replace cocoa but actually taste like it.

This search has led a team of researchers to an unlikely candidate—the humble carob pulp, a neglected food by-product. Their study reveals how carob pulp can be transformed into a cocoa-like ingredient that smells, tastes, and behaves much more like chocolate than ever before.

“By turning to hardy, climate-resilient crops like carob, we can help the industry adapt to environmental challenges while giving consumers a product they will enjoy,” Manfred Ku, lead researcher and a PhD student at the National University of Singapore (NUS), said.

Converting carob into a cocoa-like ingredient

The study authors focused on carob pulp, which is left over after extracting locust bean gum—a thickening agent widely used in the food industry. When roasted, carob naturally releases aromas similar to cocoa, but it lacks chocolate’s bitterness, depth, and roasted flavors. This explains why it has never appealed to major chocolate manufacturers.

To overcome this limitation, the researchers designed two enzyme-based processes, each targeting a different weakness in carob’s flavor. In the first process, the team treated soy protein with a food-grade enzyme under controlled warm conditions, allowing the protein to break down into smaller components. 

This enzyme-treated protein was then mixed into carob pulp before roasting. During roasting, chemical reactions between the protein fragments and the natural sugars in carob produced important chocolate-like aroma compounds, including 2-methylbutanal and 3-methylbutanal. These compounds are strongly associated with cocoa’s malty, roasted smell. 

At the same time, the treatment increased bitterness and reduced the fruity, “carob-like” notes that typically give carob away. Together, these changes pushed the flavor much closer to that of dark chocolate. 

The second process then focused on sweetness and smoothness. Here, the researchers applied another food-friendly enzyme directly to the carob pulp before roasting. This enzyme encouraged the formation of naturally occurring simple sugars during heating. 

As the carob roasted, these sugars caramelized, creating sweet, caramel-like aroma compounds known as oxygenated heterocycles. These compounds softened sharp flavors and gave the final product a more rounded, balanced taste, similar to what people expect from chocolate. 

Moreover, after roasting, the treated carob was ground and processed in ways similar to chocolate production, showing that the ingredient could realistically fit into existing manufacturing methods.

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The future demands sustainable chocolate material

Due to climate change and various other factors, cocoa growers witnessed one of their lowest yields in 2023–2024. This shortfall drove chocolate prices to record highs and pushed many manufacturers to alter recipes to manage rising production costs. This even affected the taste and quality of many of your favorite chocolate bars and cocoa products.

The cocoa crisis forced chocolate makers and scientists to look for alternatives, and this is when the overlooked carob trees began to draw the attention of the researchers. Carob comes up with many advantages. It is naturally caffeine-free, contains less bitterness than cocoa, and is rich in d-pinitol, a compound linked to anti-diabetic effects—and this is not all.

Crucially, carob trees (Ceratonia siliqua) thrive in dry, arid environments and tolerate drought well—unlike cocoa trees (Theobroma cacao), which require humid climates, steady rainfall, and narrow temperature ranges. 

If adopted on a large scale, carob could help the chocolate industry reduce its dependence on cocoa at a time when climate stress is making supply increasingly unstable. Also, since carob pulp is a by-product, it also offers lower costs and less waste, making it economically appealing as well as sustainable. 

“Our carob-based innovation meets the relatively untapped and nascent market of alternative chocolate sources,” Shao-Quan Liu, one of the study authors and an assistant professor at NUS, said.

Going forward, the researchers plan to further improve the flavor of carob-based chocolate, explore ways to scale up production, and test how appealing it is to everyday consumers.

The study is published in the Journal of Food Science.