### **Timing and Links to Watch & Comment** 🗓️ This stream begins at 10:00 ****MST**** (10:00 P****D**** T, 11:00 M****D**** T, 12:00 C****D**** T, 1:00 pm E****D**** T) on Tuesday, October 6th, 2026. Links below to watch LIVE and to view the archived episode. This ****YOUTUBE**** link is shareable. Watch and comment LIVE or view the archived episode! Subscribe (free!) to the @PodSaveChocolate YouTube channel, like this video, comment, and ****share**** this episode to help grow the #PSC community. Participate/Watch on YouTube This ****LINKEDIN**** link is shareable. Watch and comment LIVE or view the archived episode on LinkedIn. Join my network on LinkedIn to receive notifications and to refer business to each other. Participate/Watch on LinkedIn This ****FACEBOOK**** link is shareable Watch and comment LIVE or view the archived episode on ****TheChocolateLife page**** on Facebook (for 30 days, then watch the archive on YouTube). Follow TheChocolateLife on Facebook to receive notifications and catch up on other content. Participate/Watch on Facebook * * * ## **Episode 236** A couple of weeks ago, someone in Instagram contacted me about a new ceremonial cacao initiative: Certified Ceremonial Cacao. Certified Ceremonial Cacao® HomeCertified Ceremonial Cacao® is the world’s first legally registered certification to protect the sale of cacao that’s grown and prepared in places of pre-Columbian cacao history.CERTIFIED CEREMONIAL CACAO Regular viewers of PodSaveChocolate will know of some of my recent coverage of ceremonial cacao, specifically debunking Maïa and Naturalistico. UPDATED: Is Maïa Ceremonial Cacao a Scam? | #PSC 179Episode 179 of PodSaveChocolate examines the health claims made about and for Maïa’s “#Ceremonial Cacao.” Are they believable? Should you trust them? Why – or why not? [Updated to add FREE downloadable PDF eBook.]The Chocolate LifeClay Gordon Maïa Certification: The Newest Ceremonial Cacao Scam | #PSC 225OVERVIEW: At the request of a friend of TheChocolateLife, Episode 225 of #PodSaveChocolate takes a look at a Certified Ceremonial Cacao Guide course offered by the US company, Naturalistico. Is it on the up and up? What is being certified … and what are the benefits of certification?The Chocolate LifeClay Gordon Naturalistico > This episode will **_not_** be a debunking. Rather, it’s a conidered examination for what the certifications claims are – and what is **_not_** being claimed. > The TL;DR: This effort appears to be an earnest, honest effort to provide clarity to a segment of the market that is clouded by conflicting claims and, unfortunately, populated by some (to me) less-than-honest actors. In this episode I will discuss: * What is a “certification” trademark and how do they differ from regular trademarks? * **Who** is behind the certification * **What** they are trying to do * **Who** it applies to (who can be certified, and where) * **How much** certification will cost, and * **How and why** it’s important to read closely To prepare for this episode I read the Certified Ceremonial Cacao website carefully (several times over a week) comparing what is on the home page with what is on the FAQ, Certified Products, and Blog pages. I also examined relevant USPTO and IRS documents. Finally, I reached out to the founder with a set of questions I had after that research. > The answers to my questions demonstrated an openness and willingness to engage, as well as exposing the care and thought given to the issues at hand. That does not mean I don’t have more questions – but I don’t sell ceremonial cacao products. So, I will raise some questions that I think need more complete answers that – if you’re interested in this certification – you will want answers to before you apply. * * * ### **Future Episodes** 🗓️ I am traveling from Oct 7 -14, so there will be no episode of PodSaveChocolate on October 9th and 13th. 🗓️ No future episodes were scheduled at the time of publication. * * * ### **Episode Hashtags** #cocoa #cacao #cacau #chocolate #chocolat #PodSaveChoc #PSC #LaVidaCocoa #TheChocolateLife * * * ### **#PodSaveChocolate and #TheChocolateLifeLIVE Archives** **To read an archived post** and find the links to watch archived episodes, click on one of the bookmark cards below. Pod Save Chocolate Calendar and ArchiveNews, views, and conversations on topics in cocoa and chocolate streamed live to YouTube, LinkedIn, and Facebook. #PodSaveChocolate!The Chocolate LifeClay Gordon Episodes 201-300 (links to older PSC archives are in the top nav). #TheChocolateLifeLIVE ArchiveNews, views, and conversations on topics in cocoa and chocolate streamed live to YouTube, LinkedIn, and Facebook.The Chocolate LifeClay Gordon ⁉️ After a year-long+ experiment, the audio-only versions of PodSaveChocolate episodes have been taken down after an end-of-year review. There were not enough listens to continue uploading episodes and paying for hosting. ## Not a Member? Live The Chocolate Life – Live La Vida Cocoa! Sign up for ****Free**** to comment and receive members-only content. Subscribe Email sent! Check your inbox to complete your signup. No spam. Unsubscribe anytime. Premium subscriptions available. * * *

### **Timing and Links to Watch & Comment** 🗓️ This stream begins at 10:00 ****MST**** (10:00 P****D**** T, 11:00 M****D**** T, 12:00 C****D**** T, 1:00 pm E****D**** T) on Friday, October 2nd, 2026. Links below to watch LIVE and to view the archived episode. This ****YOUTUBE**** link is shareable. Watch and comment LIVE or view the archived episode! Subscribe (free!) to the @PodSaveChocolate YouTube channel, like this video, comment, and ****share**** this episode to help grow the #PSC community. Participate/Watch on YouTube This ****LINKEDIN**** link is shareable. Watch and comment LIVE or view the archived episode on LinkedIn. Join my network on LinkedIn to receive notifications and to refer business to each other. Participate/Watch on LinkedIn This ****FACEBOOK**** link is shareable Watch and comment LIVE or view the archived episode on ****TheChocolateLife page**** on Facebook (for 30 days, then watch the archive on YouTube). Follow TheChocolateLife on Facebook to receive notifications and catch up on other content. Participate/Watch on Facebook ## **Episode 235 Overview** This episode of #PodSaveChocolate takes a _critical_ look at a MrBeast video with over 85 million views in 12 days. (Note: MrBeast’s YT channel has 513 million subscribers.) The title of the video is **_I Built A City To Save Kids from Illegal Labor_**. Key elements of that statement will be evaluated and placed within the much larger context of what the scale of the problem Jimmy is attempting to solve. The TL;DR: Hot Take: > What MrBeast’s enterprise built is a school with teacher housing, not a city – not even a village – and _nothing_ like what the video thumbnail implies. > > The model for rescuing 1.5 million children from illegal child labor (MrBeast Announces Feastables Strategy to Eradicate Child Labor in the Cocoa Industry in West Africa) is not scalable. > > The real work is price, monitoring (CLMRS), and meals, co-funded and operated by uncredited partners … **and made possible by the Big Chocolate supply chain it attacks.** * * * ## **Before I Begin** A ChocolateLife Premium member I corresponded with (before I committed to doing this episode) asked why I was so skeptical about Mr Beast’s efforts in this area; shouldn’t I cut Jimmy some slack for raising awareness of the issue of illegal child labor in cocoa in W Africa? That’s a fair question. Some thoughts. 1. **Timing.** The video was published on September 19th, the 25th Anniversary of the signing of the Harkin-Engel Protocol. I don’t see this as a coincidence. 2. **Barry Callebaut** is likely the (undisclosed) company that transforms the Tony’s Open Chain beans into chocolate. BC is one of the original signatories to Harkin-Engel. 3. The **International Cocoa Initiative** (“ICI”), a Feastables partner, was created by industry in response to Harkin-Engel to eradicate “the worst forms of child labor” in cocoa by 2005. The ICI originated the CLMRS that Feastables points to. 4. **Fairtrade International** is a part of the “certification industrial complex” that relies on the problem’s continued existence to maintain relevance and justify its own existence. 5. Tony’s Open Chain is anything _but_ open. Feastables is inseparable from Tony’s and relies on their goodwill as the basis for their own. > The actors above have all been complicit in the industry’s failure to fix the child labor problems they committed to (in one way or another) and/or were founded to fix. > > Yet, here they are, anchoring the claims made for why Mr Beast should be trusted to fix the problem. However – * **The model fails** immediately under even moderately close examination (which Jimmy knows his followers will **_not_** do). As promoted, the scheme **_cannot_** scale and it does not address fundamental issues, such as climate-change driven by deforestation, and it does not account for the replacement cost of labor. * **Feastables** stands to gain much, _much_ more than cocoa farmers in W Africa do. * * * ## **Themes I Examined** ### **What _is_ actually being built?** What is being built is **_not_** a city, or even a village. It’s a school campus with teacher housing and shared services, built on a field next to an existing community in Ghana. What | Detail | Who it serves ---|---|--- School | 10 classrooms, fans, electricity, desks, library; "over 300" students (325 in the old building) | Children Houses | 10, furnished, rooftop solar, given "100% free" (legal title unclear) | Teachers relocated to the site Water | Solar-pumped wells, two tower tanks, piped to homes | Village Power | Off-grid solar, solar streetlights | Village Drainage | Two 4 ft culverts replacing a 3 ft pipe at the river crossing | Access between the two halves of the community Food | Farm, irrigation, fish tanks (aquaponics), chicken coop (~120 eggs/day) | Community Community center | Library, medical center | Community Market, toilets, football field, playground | — | Community ### **Other themes:** 1. **Who is footing the bill?** 2. **What are the long-term maintenance and support commitment?** 3. **Who is currently manufacturing Feastables chocolate?** _This is unclear, but needs to be – the entire supply chain should be made public._ As a Tony’s Open Chain partner it is possible that the chocolate is being manufactured by Barry Callebaut at its factory in Wieze, Belgium and shipped to processing partners in the US and EU that deposit and wrap the bars. Previously, Feastables sourced their cocoa in Peru and the manufacturer was Machu Picchu Foods (Lima). 4. **How does this scale (can it scale?) from 300 to 1.5 million children?** 5. **What the video _doesn’t_ say** 6. **Press credulity** ### **Following the money** 1. The biggest winner (of the video) is the Feastables brand. A ~$10M project became a video that got 81M+ views in its first eleven days and ends with “go get a Feastables bar” to support this cause. 2. Next come the institutions that bought reach to MrBeast’s audience. 3. The cocoa farmers the story is about get the least **_new_** money. * **Beneficiary:** MrBeast / Beast Industries / Feastables * **ROI:** High, indirect. A long-form brand film for Mr Beast’s most profitable unit ($250M sales and $20M+ profit in 2024, while the media division lost ~$80M). Plus undisclosed ad revenue and sponsor fees (e.g., NeuroGum). * **Goodwill:** “My most impactful video ever” * **Other benefits:** Casts Feastables as an (the?) ethical alternative to “Big Chocolate”; answers past supply-chain criticism; supports a ~$5B valuation. **How the loop works:** 1. Fans buy Feastables. (Chocolate _is_ the profitable business.) 2. Profits and partner money fund a spectacle video. The ~$10M headline is 2.5–3× what a typical main-channel video costs ($3–4M), a _nd this amount also appears to include the cost of construction._ 3. The video earns ads and a sponsor fee, and closes by telling viewers to buy Feastables. 4. Partners buy credit and reach. The brand buys an ethical story it can’t get from paid ads. 5. The farmers’ gain depends on tonnes bought, not views. That link is one the video doesn’t talk about. **Some questions for Jimmy:** 1. Who contacted whom, first? Did MrBeast contact Tony’s Open Chain or did Tony’s contact MrBeast – and when? And how long before serious discussions began? 2. Who actually transforms the beans into chocolate? Where? 3. Did the video’s ad revenue go to Beast Philanthropy or to Beast Industries? (Could affect tax reporting.) 4. Was the $10M booked as charity, marketing, or content production? 5. What did NeuroGum pay for the ad placement? ### **More Painful Financial Facts** To be disclosed during the episode – and updated here, after. * * * ### **Related Episodes** Harkin-Engel at 25 | #PSC 232OVERVIEW: Episode 232 of #PodSaveChocolate explores twenty-five years of progress (lack thereof?) in eradicating illegal labor – including slavery – from cocoa. What’s standing in the way? [updated]The Chocolate LifeClay GordonExamining Tony’s Open Chain: Is This a Good Use of AI? | #PodSaveChocolate Ep 126Episode 126 of #PodSaveChocolate features an exploration of using Gemini to summarize Tony’s Open Chain Report for the 2023-2024 reporting year. Is this a good use of AI? What can we learn from Gemini’s analysis? What are the limits? Is anything missing? Can Gemini be trusted? [updated]The Chocolate LifeClay GordonExploring Tony’s “Open” Chain | #PodSaveChocolate Ep 124Episode 124 of #PodSaveChocolate is an exploration of Tony’s Open Chain, searching for answers to, among other questions, “How ‘Open’ is Open?”The Chocolate LifeClay GordonThe 2025 Chocolate Scorecard & Tony’s “Fair” Report | #PodSaveChocolate Ep 114Episode 114 of #PodSaveChocolate features a discussion of two recurring topics: The Chocolate Scorecard (released just in time for Easter), and the most recent “Fair” Report from Tony’s Chocolonely. [ Updated ]The Chocolate LifeClay GordonTheChocolateLifeLIVE | Proposed: IS Tony’s Chocolonely a Force for Good in the World?Episode 121 of #TheChocolateLifeLIVE is LIVE from 10:00 AM PDT / 1:00 PM EDT on Fri, July 7th.The Chocolate LifeTheChocolateWireTheChocolateLife::LIVE – Does Ben+Jerry+Tony = Greenwashing?OR: The Good, The Bad, & The Greenwashing! Episode 56 streams live on Friday, Sep 2nd from 12:00 EDT and is a continuation of the discussions about what chocolate is…The Chocolate LifeTheChocolateWireTaking a(nother Small) Bite Out of Tony’sTilting at Windmills? Part 2 in a multi-part series examining the fallout from Tony’s Sweet Solutions campaign.The Chocolate LifeClay GordonFour Bars Too Far?Their new campaign has many people asking ... WTF were they thinking?The Chocolate LifeClay Gordon * * * ### **Future Episodes** 🗓️ Tuesday, October 6 ****Hot Take:**** The new “Certified Ceremonial Cacao” certification. * * * ### **Episode Hashtags** #MrBeast #Feastables #cocoa #cacao #cacau #chocolate #chocolat #PodSaveChoc #PSC #LaVidaCocoa #TheChocolateLife * * * ### **#PodSaveChocolate and #TheChocolateLifeLIVE Archives** **To read an archived post** and find the links to watch archived episodes, click on one of the bookmark cards below. Pod Save Chocolate Calendar and ArchiveNews, views, and conversations on topics in cocoa and chocolate streamed live to YouTube, LinkedIn, and Facebook. #PodSaveChocolate!The Chocolate LifeClay Gordon Episodes 201-300 (links to older PSC archives are in the top nav). #TheChocolateLifeLIVE ArchiveNews, views, and conversations on topics in cocoa and chocolate streamed live to YouTube, LinkedIn, and Facebook.The Chocolate LifeClay Gordon ⁉️ After a year-long+ experiment, the audio-only versions of PodSaveChocolate episodes have been taken down after an end-of-year review. There were not enough listens to continue uploading episodes and paying for hosting. ## Not a Member? Live The Chocolate Life – Live La Vida Cocoa! Sign up for ****Free**** to comment and receive members-only content. Subscribe Email sent! Check your inbox to complete your signup. No spam. Unsubscribe anytime. Premium subscriptions available. * * *

### **Timing and Links to Watch & Comment** 🗓️ This stream begins at 10:00 ****MST**** (10:00 P****D**** T, 11:00 M****D**** T, 12:00 C****D**** T, 1:00 pm E****D**** T) on Friday, September 25th, 2026. Links below to watch LIVE and to view the archived episode. This ****YOUTUBE**** link is shareable. Watch and comment LIVE or view the archived episode! Subscribe (free!) to the @PodSaveChocolate YouTube channel, like this video, comment, and ****share**** this episode to help grow the #PSC community. Participate/Watch on YouTube This ****LINKEDIN**** link is shareable. Watch and comment LIVE or view the archived episode on LinkedIn. Join my network on LinkedIn to receive notifications and to refer business to each other. Participate/Watch on LinkedIn This ****FACEBOOK**** link is shareable Watch and comment LIVE or view the archived episode on ****TheChocolateLife page**** on Facebook (for 30 days, then watch the archive on YouTube). Follow TheChocolateLife on Facebook to receive notifications and catch up on other content. Participate/Watch on Facebook * * * ## **Episode 234** If you’ve been following PodSaveChocolate and TheChocolateLife::LIVE, you know I think about flavor a lot. Most recently my thoughts are part of a larger research effort to understand how chocolate is classified compared with beer, wine, spirits, coffee, tea, and cheese. (In this grouping, chocolate and cheese are the most alike.) > I have become increasingly convinced that one thing holding chocolate appreciation and connoisseurship back is that there is no widely accepted framework for thinking about chocolate flavor that is based on first principles. Many of the popular approaches to visualizing taste have been influenced by the wine wheel introduced by Ann Noble in 1984. Beer, spirits, and cheese (not shown here) and coffee and chocolate (shown in this post) have built visualizations from the wine foundation. I will be exploring the OG wine flavor classification “mistakes” and how they have been replicated across other domains, as I taste four chocolate bars: 1. Wildwood Chocolate’s Fennel Pollen Caramel 2. Manoa Chocolate’s Manakō Mango (from the _Flavors of Hawai'i_ series) 3. Dandelion Chocolate’s 70% Zorzal Comunitario 4. And ... the _just_ released Askinosie 65% Dark + Sichuan Chili Oil collaBARation with Fly By Jing. > The first three bars are available at a local bakery; the Askinosie was sent to me. I will not have tasted any of these bars in advance of the episode. * * * ### **Representative Wheels – Flavor Viz Falling Short** [L]: Wine flavor wheel. [R]: Specialty Coffee Association flavor wheel. Cocoa of Excellence current wheel and how how it is used in judging. Hidden Persuaders__in Cocoa and Chocolate__ was launched in February 2018. [L]: For professionals. [R]: For consumers. [L]: Chocolatras chocolate flavor wheel; [R] beanstalkr flavor wheel. * * * ### **Alternatives to Wheels** How the IICCT visualizes flavors. [L]: Positive flavor attributes. [C] The bridge from chemistry to experience and association. [R]: Another take entirely. * * * ### **Recent Related Episodes** Visualizing Flavor | #PSC 220OVERVIEW: Episode 220 of #PodSaveChocolate takes a look at flavor visualizations, how they may influence the way flavors are perceived, and more. Are some presentation formats better than others? Should some entire approaches be deprecated? [updated]The Chocolate LifeClay GordonUpdated: Chocolate Education, Evaluation & Competition Judging | #PSC 218OVERVIEW: Episode 218 of #PodSaveChocolate takes an in-depth look at the IICCT and ICAs through the lens of educating people about chocolate, evaluating chocolate, and judging competitions, in comparison with beer and other beverages and foods. [ Updated to include commentary/notes. ]The Chocolate LifeClay GordonBefore the Judging Can Begin | #PSC 217OVERVIEW: Episode 217 of #PodSaveChocolate takes a look at typology, classification, and taxonomy – and how the lack of a formal, consistent, and defensible vocabulary is a gaping hole in how chocolate is taught and judged. Then ... what can be done to address the challenges?The Chocolate LifeClay GordonEvaluating Chocolate: the What, the Why, and the How | #PSC 215OVERVIEW: Episode 215 of #PodSaveChocolate takes a look back, and forward, at how chocolate is evaluated – and asks the question, “Have we been doing it wrong all these years?”The Chocolate LifeClay Gordon ### **Future Episodes** 🗓️ Tuesday, September 29th ****First Look @**** the recently announced****Certified Ceremonial Cacao**** certification. * * * ### **Episode Hashtags** #cocoa #cacao #cacau #chocolate #chocolat #PodSaveChoc #PSC #LaVidaCocoa #TheChocolateLife * * * ### **#PodSaveChocolate and #TheChocolateLifeLIVE Archives** **To read an archived post** and find the links to watch archived episodes, click on one of the bookmark cards below. Pod Save Chocolate Calendar and ArchiveNews, views, and conversations on topics in cocoa and chocolate streamed live to YouTube, LinkedIn, and Facebook. #PodSaveChocolate!The Chocolate LifeClay Gordon Episodes 201-300 (links to older PSC archives are in the top nav). #TheChocolateLifeLIVE ArchiveNews, views, and conversations on topics in cocoa and chocolate streamed live to YouTube, LinkedIn, and Facebook.The Chocolate LifeClay Gordon ⁉️ After a year-long+ experiment, the audio-only versions of PodSaveChocolate episodes have been taken down after an end-of-year review. There were not enough listens to continue uploading episodes and paying for hosting. ## Not a Member? Live The Chocolate Life – Live La Vida Cocoa! Sign up for ****Free**** to comment and receive members-only content. Subscribe Email sent! Check your inbox to complete your signup. No spam. Unsubscribe anytime. Premium subscriptions available. * * *

### **Timing and Links to Watch & Comment** 🗓️ This stream begins at 10:00 ****MST**** (10:00 P****D**** T, 11:00 M****D**** T, 12:00 C****D**** T, 1:00 pm E****D**** T) on Friday, September 25th, 2026. Links below to watch LIVE and to view the archived episode. This ****YOUTUBE**** link is shareable. Watch and comment LIVE or view the archived episode! Subscribe (free!) to the @PodSaveChocolate YouTube channel, like this video, comment, and ****share**** this episode to help grow the #PSC community. Participate/Watch on YouTube This ****LINKEDIN**** link is shareable. Watch and comment LIVE or view the archived episode on LinkedIn. Join my network on LinkedIn to receive notifications and to refer business to each other. Participate/Watch on LinkedIn This ****FACEBOOK**** link is shareable Watch and comment LIVE or view the archived episode on ****TheChocolateLife page**** on Facebook (for 30 days, then watch the archive on YouTube). Follow TheChocolateLife on Facebook to receive notifications and catch up on other content. Participate/Watch on Facebook * * * ## **Episode 234** If you’ve been following PodSaveChocolate and TheChocolateLife::LIVE, you know I think about flavor a lot. Most recently my thoughts are part of a larger research effort to understand how chocolate is classified compared with beer, wine, spirits, coffee, tea, and cheese. (In this grouping, chocolate and cheese are the most alike.) > I have become increasingly convinced that one thing holding chocolate appreciation and connoisseurship back is that there is no widely accepted framework for thinking about chocolate flavor that is based on first principles. Many of the popular approaches to visualizing taste have been influenced by the wine wheel introduced by Ann Noble in 1984. Beer, spirits, and cheese (not shown here) and coffee and chocolate (shown in this post) have built visualizations from the wine foundation. I will be exploring the OG wine flavor classification “mistakes” and how they have been replicated across other domains, as I taste four chocolate bars: 1. Wildwood Chocolate’s Fennel Pollen Caramel 2. Manoa Chocolate’s Manakō Mango (from the _Flavors of Hawai'i_ series) 3. Dandelion Chocolate’s 70% Zorzal Comunitario 4. And ... the _just_ released Askinosie 65% Dark + Sichuan Chili Oil collaBARation with Fly By Jing. > The first three bars are available at a local bakery; the Askinosie was sent to me. I will not have tasted any of these bars in advance of the episode. * * * ### **Representative Wheels – Flavor Viz Falling Short** [L]: Wine flavor wheel. [R]: Specialty Coffee Association flavor wheel. Cocoa of Excellence current wheel and how how it is used in judging. Hidden Persuaders__in Cocoa and Chocolate__ was launched in February 2018. [L]: For professionals. [R]: For consumers. [L]: Chocolatras chocolate flavor wheel; [R] beanstalkr flavor wheel. * * * ### **Alternatives to Wheels** How the IICCT visualizes flavors. [L]: Positive flavor attributes. [C] The bridge from chemistry to experience and association. [R]: Another take entirely. * * * ### **Recent Related Episodes** Visualizing Flavor | #PSC 220OVERVIEW: Episode 220 of #PodSaveChocolate takes a look at flavor visualizations, how they may influence the way flavors are perceived, and more. Are some presentation formats better than others? Should some entire approaches be deprecated? [updated]The Chocolate LifeClay GordonUpdated: Chocolate Education, Evaluation & Competition Judging | #PSC 218OVERVIEW: Episode 218 of #PodSaveChocolate takes an in-depth look at the IICCT and ICAs through the lens of educating people about chocolate, evaluating chocolate, and judging competitions, in comparison with beer and other beverages and foods. [ Updated to include commentary/notes. ]The Chocolate LifeClay GordonBefore the Judging Can Begin | #PSC 217OVERVIEW: Episode 217 of #PodSaveChocolate takes a look at typology, classification, and taxonomy – and how the lack of a formal, consistent, and defensible vocabulary is a gaping hole in how chocolate is taught and judged. Then ... what can be done to address the challenges?The Chocolate LifeClay GordonEvaluating Chocolate: the What, the Why, and the How | #PSC 215OVERVIEW: Episode 215 of #PodSaveChocolate takes a look back, and forward, at how chocolate is evaluated – and asks the question, “Have we been doing it wrong all these years?”The Chocolate LifeClay Gordon ### **Future Episodes** 🗓️ Tuesday, September 29th ****First Look @**** the recently announced****Certified Ceremonial Cacao**** certification. * * * ### **Episode Hashtags** #cocoa #cacao #cacau #chocolate #chocolat #PodSaveChoc #PSC #LaVidaCocoa #TheChocolateLife * * * ### **#PodSaveChocolate and #TheChocolateLifeLIVE Archives** **To read an archived post** and find the links to watch archived episodes, click on one of the bookmark cards below. Pod Save Chocolate Calendar and ArchiveNews, views, and conversations on topics in cocoa and chocolate streamed live to YouTube, LinkedIn, and Facebook. #PodSaveChocolate!The Chocolate LifeClay Gordon Episodes 201-300 (links to older PSC archives are in the top nav). #TheChocolateLifeLIVE ArchiveNews, views, and conversations on topics in cocoa and chocolate streamed live to YouTube, LinkedIn, and Facebook.The Chocolate LifeClay Gordon ⁉️ After a year-long+ experiment, the audio-only versions of PodSaveChocolate episodes have been taken down after an end-of-year review. There were not enough listens to continue uploading episodes and paying for hosting. ## Not a Member? Live The Chocolate Life – Live La Vida Cocoa! Sign up for ****Free**** to comment and receive members-only content. Subscribe Email sent! Check your inbox to complete your signup. No spam. Unsubscribe anytime. Premium subscriptions available. * * *

🗓️ This stream begins at 10:00 ****MST**** (10:00 P****D**** T, 11:00 M****D**** T, 12:00 C****D**** T, 1:00 pm E****D**** T) on Friday, September 18th, 2026. Links below to watch LIVE and to view the archived episode. This ****YOUTUBE**** link is shareable. Watch and comment LIVE or view the archived episode! Subscribe (free!) to the @PodSaveChocolate YouTube channel, like this video, comment, and ****share**** this episode to help grow the #PSC community. Participate/Watch on YouTube This ****LINKEDIN**** link is shareable. Watch and comment LIVE or view the archived episode on LinkedIn. Join my network on LinkedIn to receive notifications and to refer business to each other. Participate/Watch on LinkedIn This ****FACEBOOK**** link is shareable Watch and comment LIVE or view the archived episode on ****TheChocolateLife page**** on Facebook (for 30 days, then watch the archive on YouTube). Follow TheChocolateLife on Facebook to receive notifications and catch up on other content. Participate/Watch on Facebook * * * ## **Episode 232** In September 2001, under threat of a congressional bill, the CEOs of major US chocolate companies signed **the Harkin-Engel Protocol** , promising industry-wide standards to eliminate the worst forms of child labor in cocoa by July 1, 2005. > One nuance missed by many: The Harkin-Engel Protocol _was**never** codified into federal law or regulation;_ it’s a voluntary joint statement signed by industry representatives, Senator Harkin, and Representative Engel on September 19th, 2001, and it lives in the private/NGO archival space, not in federal code. The full name of the Protocol is: “PROTOCOL FOR THE GROWING AND PROCESSING OF COCOA BEANS AND THEIR DERIVATIVE PRODUCTS IN A MANNER THAT COMPLIES WITH ILO CONVENTION 182 CONCERNING THE PROHIBITION AND IMMEDIATE ACTION FOR THE ELIMINATION OF THE WORST FORMS OF CHILD LABOR,” and it is memorialized on Chocolate Manufacturers Association (“CMA”) letterhead. > The National Confectionery Association (NCA) and the Chocolate Manufacturers Association (CMA) merged in 2007. **Signatories and witnesses to the protocol include:** The Chocolate Manufacturers Association; the World Cocoa Foundation; Senator Tom Harkin; Senator Herbert Kohl; Congressman Eliot Engel; Ambassador Youssoufou Bamba (Embassy of the Ivory Coast); Mr. Frans Roselaers, Director, International Programme on the Elimination of Child Labour [IPEC], International Labor Organization (ILO); Ron Oswald, General Secretary, International Union of Food, Agricultural, Hotel, Restaurant, Catering, Tobacco and Allied Workers' Associations (IUI); Kevin Bales, Executive Director, Free The Slaves; Linda Golodner, President, National Consumers League; Darlene Adkins, National Coordinator, The Child Labor Coalition; Guittard; Mars; World’s Finest Chocolate; Archer Daniels Midland (ADM); Nestlé (USA); Blommer; Hershey; and Barry Callebaut AG. The “as close to an official version as appears to exist” is hosted by the International Cocoa Initiative (“ICI”), the organization that grew directly out of the Protocol’s oversight mechanism, at the link below. Harkin Engel ProtocolIn September 2001, chocolate and cocoa industry representatives signed an agreement, developed in partnership with Senator Tom Harkin and Representative Eliot Engel, to eliminate the worst forms of child labour in the growing and processing of cocoa beans and their derivative products wherever cocoa is grown.ICI Cocoa Initiative In 2010, a Framework of Action to Support Implementation of the Harkin-Engel Protocol was agreed to. > The “as close to an official version as appears to exist” contains a duplicate page for some reason. Harkin–Engel Protocol - WikipediaWikimedia Foundation, Inc.Contributors to Wikimedia projects ### **Some History** The 2005 deadline was missed. So was the next one, in 2008. So was the one after that, in 2010. _In 2010 the industry didn’t just extend the deadline, they quietly moved the goalposts: from eliminating child labor entirely to reducing the worst forms of it by 70% by 2020._ Which deadline they _also_ missed. 🗞️ What independent sources report * The National Opinion Research Center (“NORC”) at the University of Chicago ran the largest-ever survey of the sector for the U.S. Department of Labor. Their October 2020 brief states plainly: from 2008/09 to 2018/19, cocoa production in Côte d'Ivoire and Ghana rose 62%, and during that period, child labor rose 14%, and hazardous child labor rose 13%. NORC: Child Labor in Cocoa Production in Côte d'Ivoire & Ghana * An investigation published in the Washington Post in 2019 added a traceability angle: at the time, Mars could trace only 24% of its cocoa to farms, Hershey less than half, Nestlé 49%. Its framing of the two-decade record: "Hershey, Nestle and Mars broke their pledges to end child labor in chocolate production." 1) Washington Post, 2019 2) Washington Post, October 2020: Child labor on the rise in cocoa industry despite years of company promises to stop it 🏭 ****The companies’ own words, now**** The **National Confectioners Association** (NCA) supports the Harkin-Engel Protocol, which aims to eliminate child labor in cocoa production. They advocate for responsible sourcing and transparency in the chocolate supply chain to ensure ethical practices. NCA also promotes initiatives that align with these goals. **Hershey**(current sustainability page): “We aim to eliminate child labor in our supply chain by working with governments, suppliers and farming communities to prevent and remediate issues.” Backed by a ‘12-year, $500 million investment,’ with 105,099 farmers supported as of its 2024 RBR report. Hershey: Cocoa **Mars**(Cocoa for Generations page): “Our goal by 2025: Through our suppliers, to implement robust child labor and forced labor monitoring and remediation systems for 100% of at-risk families in our cocoa supply chains.” Mars also estimated it would need to reach “more than 150,000 cocoa farming households with an estimated 500,000 children.” Mars: Responsible Cocoa Today **Nestlé USA** (FAQ page): “By 2025, we are committed to be able to trace all cocoa back to a specific group of farms and ensure 100% of the cocoa we use is sourced within our sustainability cocoa program.” The FAQs also state that roughly 128,000 children have been “protected against the risk of child labor since 2012.” Nestlé USA: How is Nestlé tackling child labor risk? * All of the “by 2025” pledges are past due. * It’s September 2026 and I could not find a single company statement confirming whether Mars, Hershey, or Nestlé actually hit their 2025 traceability or CLMRS coverage targets. * * * ### **Guests in the live stream** Charity Ryerson**–** Founder/Executive Director, Corporate Accountability Lab Corporate Accountability LabCorporate Accountability LabCorporate Accountability LabHome Corporate Accountability Lab on LinkedIn. IRAadvocatesIRAadvocates Terry Collingsworth, the Executive Director of IRA, was originally scheduled to appear but a conflict makes that impossible. Charity Ryerson of Corporate Accountability Lab will appear in Terry’s stead. **Miki Mistrati** – Producer/Filmmaker Harkin-Engel at 25Share your videos with friends, family, and the worldYouTube A ****playlist**** of three videos produced by Miki Mistrati (__The Dark Side of Chocolate, Shady Chocolate, and The Chocolate War__), and our interview. More videos by and about Miki on YouTube. > The DP for _The Dark Side of Chocolate_ was U. Roberto (Robin) Romano, who is also known for the documentary **_The Harvest_** (la Cosecha), which was released in 2010. I was fortunate to have had the opportunity to work with Robin before his passing in 2013. **Bright Adjei Debrah** – Founder, ICRAWE (Ghana) Imperial Child Right And Women EmpowermentImperial Child Right And Women Empowerment. 179 likes. I.C.R.A.W.E is a registered not for profit organization in Ghana, 1. To promote and protect the dignity of women and children in Cocoa growing…Facebook Podcast guest Bright Adjei Debrah is a founder of ICRAWE. * * * ### **Featured Image** The photo is believed to be from the late 1800’s, at a cocoa plantation whose location was not recorded. It’s unknown if the image is of workers after the abolition of slavery in the colonies, or if the people picture are indeed (still) slaves. [L] Original; [R] After editing. Although some changes are very subtle, by the use of a calculated 3D map I was able to change the lighting in the scene to add an illusion of depth that is not in the original. * * * ### **Future Episodes** 🗓️ ****Tentatively 9/22**** Change.org / FDA Citizen petition 🗓️ ****Friday, September 25th 11:30 am – 1:00 pm**** Monthly member AMA call (link in the September member newsletter). * * * ### **Episode Hashtags** #cocoa #cacao #cacau #chocolate #chocolat #PodSaveChoc #PSC #LaVidaCocoa #TheChocolateLife * * * ### **#PodSaveChocolate and #TheChocolateLifeLIVE Archives** **To read an archived post** and find the links to watch archived episodes, click on one of the bookmark cards below. Pod Save Chocolate Calendar and ArchiveNews, views, and conversations on topics in cocoa and chocolate streamed live to YouTube, LinkedIn, and Facebook. #PodSaveChocolate!The Chocolate LifeClay Gordon Episodes 201-300 (links to older PSC archives are in the top nav). #TheChocolateLifeLIVE ArchiveNews, views, and conversations on topics in cocoa and chocolate streamed live to YouTube, LinkedIn, and Facebook.The Chocolate LifeClay Gordon ⁉️ After a year-long+ experiment, the audio-only versions of PodSaveChocolate episodes have been taken down after an end-of-year review. There were not enough listens to continue uploading episodes and paying for hosting. ## Not a Member? Live The Chocolate Life – Live La Vida Cocoa! Sign up for ****Free**** to comment and receive members-only content. Subscribe Email sent! Check your inbox to complete your signup. No spam. Unsubscribe anytime. Premium subscriptions available. * * *

🗓️ This stream begins at 10:00 ****MST**** (10:00 P****D**** T, 11:00 M****D**** T, 12:00 C****D**** T, 1:00 pm E****D**** T) on Tuesday, September 8th, 2026. Links below to watch LIVE and to view the archived episode. This ****YOUTUBE**** link is shareable. Watch and comment LIVE or view the archived episode! Subscribe (free!) to the @PodSaveChocolate YouTube channel, like this video, comment, and ****share**** this episode to help grow the #PSC community. Participate/Watch on YouTube This ****LINKEDIN**** link is shareable. Watch and comment LIVE or view the archived episode on LinkedIn. Join my network on LinkedIn to receive notifications and to refer business to each other. Participate/Watch on LinkedIn This ****FACEBOOK**** link is shareable Watch and comment LIVE or view the archived episode on ****TheChocolateLife page**** on Facebook (for 30 days, then watch the archive on YouTube). Follow TheChocolateLife on Facebook to receive notifications and catch up on other content. Participate/Watch on Facebook 🗓️ The ****September Member AMA**** call is scheduled for Friday the 25th, beginning at 11:30 am PDT/MST following PodSaveChocolate. The link to participate can be found in the September member newsletter. Share this post! * * * ## **Episode 231 Overview** In this episode: **_Chocolate News that’s Fit to Eat™_** for September 2026. 💡 People participating live can ****Ask Me Anything**** __in the chat at any point during the episode.__(*As long as it’s about chocolate or cocoa.) ### **The Ongoing Saga of the Cost of Cocoa** **MARKETS** --- Barchart.com Futures Prices / Futures Overview Trading Economics Chart TradingCharts.com 1977 Baseline ICCO Pricing Stats Check out the September Member newsletter for more about the Learning Curve visualization. TCL Weekly Chocolate News Brief: August 30 – September 6The TCL Weekly Chocolate News Brief is a membership benefit for all Premium (paid) members of TheChocolateLife.The Chocolate LifeTheChocolateWire **_Highlight_ : Ivory Coast holds cocoa farmgate price at $2.12/kg for the 2026/27 season.** Abidjan's agriculture minister confirmed the price stays at 1,200 CFA francs per kilogram, **_well off last year’s record 2,800 CFA francs_** , as global cocoa prices keep softening from their 2024 peak. Ghana is expected to match it. ### **More Headlines** * Women and Youth Must Shape Cocoa’s Future, CAA Farmer Forum Hears**. (CocoaRadar)** The ‘Invisible No More’ discussion followed a presentation on the second edition of the International Farmers Network Forum. It was moderated by Selene Scotton, Group Cocoa Sustainability Manager at Puratos. Panelists were Fay Fay Choo, Asia director for cocoa sustainable sourcing at Mars; Cheok Mei-Ing, director of partnerships development for supply chains at Save the Children Federation; and Louise Mabulo, founder of The Cacao Project in the Philippines. **Questions to consider:** Who are the panelists and what are their positions? Why is there no mention of any “women and youth” cocoa farmers on the panel? ### **Another Story** Is CCN-51 a #GMO? Wrong Question, Right Problem. | #PSC 230OVERVIEW: Episode 230 was inspired by comments on an Instagram post conflating CCN-51 as a GMO with agroforestry practices. 1) Is CCN-51 a #GMO and 2) How does being a GMO (or not) connect to agricultural, farmer incomes, and related topics? [ examples updated ]The Chocolate LifeClay Gordon What I am _****NOT****_ saying about GMOs. * * * 25th Anniversary Lifetime Membership offer ****I began my career**** as a professional chocolate critic, journalist, consultant, and educator in mid-May 2001. ****That means**** I am celebrating my 25th anniversary as a professional chocolate critic, journalist, consultant, and educator in 2026. To help me celebrate, I hope you will consider becoming a _****Lifetime****_ Member! ****This updated special offer is available through December 31, 2026.**** Learn More About Lifetime Membership! ### **Op Ed** **El Niño Didn’t Wreck the 2026/27 Cocoa Harvest: Five Decades of Underinvestment Did.** **TL;DR:** Ghana’s cocoa board is warning of a harvest drop approaching 40 percent, and the trade press has settled on El Niño as the explanation. > The weather is real. The surprise is not. Researchers have been able to forecast El Niño’s effect on cacao yields up to two years out since at least 2021. The bigger story is what producing countries and “Big Chocolate” did with that lead time. > **Spoiler Alert: Not nearly enough.** Ghana’s Cocoa Marketing Company says the 2026/27 crop could fall 18 to 38 percent, and its own managing director points to old trees, disease, and a pollination failure they call unprecedented in two decades, layered on top of El Niño-linked rainfall. Futures have roughly doubled since March. > The market is treating this as a shock. It should not be. A 2021 study in _Scientific Reports_ , using a decade of Indonesian farm data, found that ENSO phases predict up to 75 percent of the variation in cacao yields, with a lead time of up to 25 months. If a research team could see this coming half a decade ago using machine learning, _so could every sourcing department holding multi-year contracts with these same farmers or marketing boards._ > ENSO stands for El Niño–Southern Oscillation. It’s the umbrella term climatologists use for the whole recurring pattern of sea-surface temperature and atmospheric pressure swings across the tropical Pacific, of which El Niño (the warm phase) and La Niña (the cool phase) are the two ends. The 2021 study was measuring cacao yield variation against the full oscillation, not only its warm-phase episodes. To be fair, the barrier is not only corporate. Smallholders face real constraints: uncertain land tenure, aging leases, and a multi-year income gap during replanting that few can absorb alone. Those are legitimate structural problems. **Which is the point.** Producing-country governments and the companies buying their beans have had two years of forecast and five decades of harvest cycles to fund replanting, extension services, and income support that would have blunted this. _Instead, Ivory Coast just froze its farmgate price, and the industry’s response to shortage has been reformulation, not reinvestment._ “The market” is being sold, again, as the fix: prices rise, supply eventually follows. That story only works if you ignore who absorbs the gap between now and “eventually.” Spoiler Alert: It is **_not_** “Big Chocolate’s” shareholders. * * * ### **Future Episodes** 🗓️ __Friday, September 18th__ ****C0mmem0rating the 25th anniversary of the signing (on Sept 19, 2001) of the Harkin-Engel Protocol**** with confirmed special guests Terry Collingsworth and Miki Mistrati. * * * ### **Episode Hashtags** #News #AMA #AskMeAnything #cocoa #cacao #cacau #chocolate #chocolat #craftchocolate #PodSaveChoc #PSC #LaVidaCocoa #TheChocolateLife * * * ### **#PodSaveChocolate and #TheChocolateLifeLIVE Archives** **To read an archived post** and find the links to watch archived episodes, click on one of the bookmark cards, below. Pod Save Chocolate Calendar and ArchiveNews, views, and conversations on topics in cocoa and chocolate streamed live to YouTube, LinkedIn, and Facebook. #PodSaveChocolate!The Chocolate LifeClay Gordon#TheChocolateLifeLIVE ArchiveNews, views, and conversations on topics in cocoa and chocolate streamed live to YouTube, LinkedIn, and Facebook.The Chocolate LifeClay Gordon ⁉️ After a year-long+ experiment, the audio-only versions of PodSaveChocolate episodes have been taken down after an end-of-year review. There were not enough listens to continue uploading episodes and paying for hosting. * * * ## Not a Member? Live The Chocolate Life – Live La Vida Cocoa! Sign up for ****Free**** to comment and receive members-only content. Subscribe Email sent! Check your inbox to complete your signup. No spam. Unsubscribe anytime. Premium subscriptions available. Premium memberships from $5/month are also available.

🗓️ This stream begins at 10:00 ****MST**** (10:00 P****D**** T, 11:00 M****D**** T, 12:00 C****D**** T, 1:00 pm E****D**** T) on Friday, September 4th, 2026. Links below to watch LIVE and to view the archived episode. This ****YOUTUBE**** link is shareable. Watch and comment LIVE or view the archived episode! Subscribe (free!) to the @PodSaveChocolate YouTube channel, like this video, comment, and ****share**** this episode to help grow the #PSC community. Participate/Watch on YouTube This ****LINKEDIN**** link is shareable. Watch and comment LIVE or view the archived episode on LinkedIn. Join my network on LinkedIn to receive notifications and to refer business to each other. Participate/Watch on LinkedIn This ****FACEBOOK**** link is shareable Watch and comment LIVE or view the archived episode on ****TheChocolateLife page**** on Facebook (for 30 days, then watch the archive on YouTube). Follow TheChocolateLife on Facebook to receive notifications and catch up on other content. Participate/Watch on Facebook * * * ## **Episode 230** A commenter in an Instagram thread posted: > … mine has been to promote and provide a way to grow agroforestry systems instead of the clear cutting for the GMO type cacao like CCN51. Regenerative agroforestry can provide food and money to farmers while delivering high quality cacao to chocolate makers. I responded, asking: > Why do you think CCN-51 is GMO? It was conventionally bred, not “created” in a lab. To which there was an initial response: > GMO doesn't only mean from a lab it means that it was heavily genetically modified. The organism itself is a great product the tree does what it was bred to do. Castro was looking to breed a variety that would work in a full sun environment. Back then the agricultural movement in Ecuador was trying to come up to speed with other more industrial styles of farming that includes banana, plantain and rice. During that era people thought it was a good idea to turn away from traditional farming practices and start growing in amore conventional style with using pesticides and fertilizers. Well now what has happened is that it has created desertification and has treated the soil poorly. The CCN 51 variety is a result of that way of thinking and they succeeded in creating a variety of cacao that wants to be in full sun. That variety has hard time being used in agroforestry systems, trust me I have tried. Varieties like nacional or criollo do thrive in shaded environments which let's farmers have more of a variety of cultivation like plantains bananas and hard woods. Not entirely relying on the cacao market this creates a more stable income for the farmer and has been working here in Ecuador. Followed by a clarification, about an hour later: > … maybe using the word GMO isn't the correct usage but the results are that many people cut down their traditional agroforestry systems which were more in balance with the ecology and created other niches for other plants to fill. In turn growing cacao that is happy in semi shaded environments creates a better water cycle system as well as habitats for animals. At the same time creates an incentive to grow a forest rather than a monocrop. In this episode I am going to unpack what’s actually being presented in the comments: * GMO has a real, specific, legal meaning, and CCN-51 does not meet it. * That fact does _not_ settle the actual argument happening in the comments; the commenter is arguing about the wrong word. The real questions are: 1. What motivated Homero Castro to develop CCN-51 _for_ — full-sun tolerance, yield, disease resistance?; 2. How was it developed?; and 3. What growing it does to a farm’s ecology and a farmer’s income. ### **What "GMO" actually means** * **Cartagena Protocol on Biosafety** (the international biosafety treaty most national law traces back to) says: a “living modified organism” requires “modern biotechnology” – _in vitro_ nucleic acid techniques, or cell fusion across taxonomic families to overcome natural reproductive barriers. _The definition explicitly excludes anything achieved through “traditional breeding and selection.”_ * **USDA National Bioengineered Food Disclosure Standard** : bioengineered food contains genetic material “modified through certain lab techniques” that “cannot be created through conventional breeding or found in nature.” * Two different regulatory bodies, two different treaties a continent apart, drawing the line in the exact same place. ### **Where CCN-51 fits** * Homero Castro, in Naranjal, Ecuador (in Guayas), was chasing the creation of a cacao variety that would be more resistant to witches’ broom after an outbreak around 1960. * CCN-50s parentage: (IMC-67 × ICS-95) × Oriente 1 – a triple cross, pollinated and propagated using conventional plant breeding techniques. * No lab. Nothing transgenic. No techniques that weren’t available to farmers with a paintbrush and patience a hundred years prior. ### **Wait, that's not a GMO either?** * **Brassicas** : cabbage, kale, broccoli, cauliflower, Brussels sprouts, kohlrabi are all one species, _Brassica oleracea_ , reshaped into six different vegetables by selecting for different plant organs over centuries. * **Apples** : Honeycrisp and Cosmic Crisp are ordinary controlled crosses out of university breeding programs, then propagated by grafting because they don't breed true from seed. This is the same clonal logic as cacao, which also does not breed true from seeds. * **Coffee:** Catimor and Sarchimor are crosses of Caturra with Híbrido de Timor, a naturally occurring Arabica-Robusta hybrid found on Timor island. Bred at Portugal’s CIFC starting in the late 1960s for resistance to leaf rust and coffee berry disease, they carry almost the identical reputation CCN-51 has: agronomically necessary, widely trashed for flavor quality. Same tradeoff, same breeding method, same argument, different crop. _If you've ever been annoyed by a Catimor-heavy blend, you already have feelings about this exact issue, you just didn’t have the cacao vocabulary for it yet._ * **Green Revolution wheat and rice** : Norin 10 dwarfing genes bred into wheat by conventional crossing; IR8 “miracle rice” out of IRRI in 1966, Peta crossed with a Taiwanese dwarf variety, Dee-geo-woo-gen. _Tripled yields across Asia. Not a gene splice in sight._ * **Grapefruit.** Ruby Red arose as a spontaneous mutation on a Texas farm in 1929. When the color faded through conventional propagation, breeders hit it with thermal neutron irradiation to bring it back; Star Ruby in 1971, Rio Red in 1985, together about three-quarters of Texas grapefruit production today. That is a more aggressive lab intervention than anything CCN-51 went through, and it is still not regulated as a GMO anywhere, including in the EU. _The divide isn’t “did a human intervene,” it’s “was the intervention gene transfer across a species barrier?”_ ### **The internal critique** * CCN-51 was bred by people trying to drag Ecuadorian cacao into a more industrial, full-sun, chemical-input style of farming, on purpose, as a matter of agricultural policy in that era. * It succeeded. CCN-51 wants full sun. It performs comparartively poorly in agroforestry systems. * Nacional and Criollo are more shade tolerant. Shade tolerance is what lets a farmer interplant plantain, banana, and hardwood alongside cacao instead of relying on one crop. * Interplanting has real, measurable beneifts: diversified income, a functioning water cycle under canopy, habitat for whatever else lives in a working forest instead of a cleared field. * In Ecuador (and Peru, and everywhere CCN-51 is grown), full-sun CCN-51 pushed out agroforestry systems that were already working. In Peru, CCN-51 pulled families out of a **coca** economy that was actively killing people, sometimes within agroforestry systems, sometimes not. Same variety, two different growing conditions, two different verdicts. That’s not a contradiction to paper over, it’s one answer to “is CCN-51 good or bad,” which is that _the variety was never the right unit of analysis_. The farming system it gets dropped into is. * **The critique of CCN-51 was never actually a genetics critique: It’s a land-use and context critique that got grafted onto a quality discussion,** * Calling CCN-51 GMO hands anyone who wants to dismiss the concern a free, technically correct exit: “actually, it’s _not_ (a GMO)” and the conversation ends before it gets anywhere near agroforestry, biodiversity, deforestation, water cycles, or farmer income. * It also flattens a genuinely complicated policy success into a punchline. In Peru, backed by USAID, CCN-51 helped pull more than 40,000 families out of a narco-trafficking economy. That deserves more than dismissing CCN-51 with “GMO bad” or “GMO not real, case closed.” * The land-use argument doesn’t need borrowed weight from a scarier, unrelated word. The land-use argument is strong enough on its own, and it survives fact-checking, which GMO doesn't. > This is the **general** lesson, not just a cacao one: precision in language is what lets the real argument, and the real trade-offs behind it, survive exposure to the full light of fact-checking. ### **In closing…** 1. CCN-51 is not a GMO under any regulatory definition on the books; that fact is not in dispute. 2. CCN-51 is is a variety deliberately bred for a full-sun, industrial-style agricultural philosophy that, in Ecuador, Peru, and elswhere, measurably pushes farmers away from shade-grown agroforestry. 3. The same variety is also the backbone of a coca-substitution program that moved over 40,000 Peruvian families into legal cacao income and cut coca cultivation by 86 percent where it was implemented, while quietly costing Peru its fine-flavor export premium as it spread. > **All three things are true at the same time.** The mistake in the comments that sparked this episode was not the argument, it was the word carrying it – GMO – and that word is too small to carry what’s actually at stake in this conversation. I have long been saying, “Monocultures of ideas are just as bad as mono-cropping.” ### **Call to action** The next time you see GMO used about a crop, _ask the more useful question_ : not “was this engineered,” but, “what was it bred _for_ , what does growing it do to the land, and who's actually cashing the check for the trade-off?” That question travels to coffee, to rice, to grapefruit, to almost anything on a supermarket shelf. * * * ### **Sources** * Cartagena Protocol on Biosafety, Article 3 definitions — living modified organism / modern biotechnology * USDA AMS — National Bioengineered Food Disclosure Standard * PeerJ — Theobroma cacao L. cultivar CCN 51: origin, genetics, and production dynamics * Sweet Maria's Coffee Library — Catimor * Wikipedia — IR8 rice * Genetic Literacy Project — mutation-bred grapefruit * USAID Peru — Alternative Development program archive (families, hectares, sales, loan, and cooperative figures) * TIME — "Drug Lords vs. Chocolate: From Coca to Cacao in Peru" (U.S. investment total, export growth, on-the-ground reporting) * Choices Magazine — "Can Niche Markets for Local Cacao Varieties Benefit Smallholders in Peru and Mexico?" (CCN-51 yield data, fine-flavor classification decline, price premiums) * Cocoa Radar — Peru's cocoa sector export statistics * Cacao Latitudes — "Emancipation from Coca with Cuencas del Huallaga Cacao and Agroforestry" (CCN-51 grown within agroforestry, quality-of-life framing) * * * ### Future Episodes 🗓️ __Friday, September 18th__ ****Celebrating(?) the 25th anniversary of the signing (on Sept 19, 2001) of the Harkin-Engel Protocol**** with confirmed special guests Terry Collingsworth and Miki Mistrati. * * * ### **Episode Hashtags** #cocoa #cacao #cacau #chocolate #chocolat #PodSaveChoc #PSC #LaVidaCocoa #TheChocolateLife * * * ### **#PodSaveChocolate and #TheChocolateLifeLIVE Archives** **To read an archived post** and find the links to watch archived episodes, click on one of the bookmark cards below. Pod Save Chocolate Calendar and ArchiveNews, views, and conversations on topics in cocoa and chocolate streamed live to YouTube, LinkedIn, and Facebook. #PodSaveChocolate!The Chocolate LifeClay Gordon Episodes 201-300 (links to older PSC archives are in the top nav). #TheChocolateLifeLIVE ArchiveNews, views, and conversations on topics in cocoa and chocolate streamed live to YouTube, LinkedIn, and Facebook.The Chocolate LifeClay Gordon ⁉️ After a year-long+ experiment, the audio-only versions of PodSaveChocolate episodes have been taken down after an end-of-year review. There were not enough listens to continue uploading episodes and paying for hosting. ## Not a Member? Live The Chocolate Life – Live La Vida Cocoa! Sign up for ****Free**** to comment and receive members-only content. Subscribe Email sent! Check your inbox to complete your signup. No spam. Unsubscribe anytime. Premium subscriptions available. * * *

🗓️ This stream begins at 10:00 ****MST**** (10:00 P****D**** T, 11:00 M****D**** T, 12:00 C****D**** T, 1:00 pm E****D**** T) on Tuesday, September 1st, 2026. Links below to watch LIVE and to view the archived episode. This ****YOUTUBE**** link is shareable. Watch and comment LIVE or view the archived episode! Subscribe (free!) to the @PodSaveChocolate YouTube channel, like this video, comment, and ****share**** this episode to help grow the #PSC community. Participate/Watch on YouTube This ****LINKEDIN**** link is shareable. Watch and comment LIVE or view the archived episode on LinkedIn. Join my network on LinkedIn to receive notifications and to refer business to each other. Participate/Watch on LinkedIn This ****FACEBOOK**** link is shareable Watch and comment LIVE or view the archived episode on ****TheChocolateLife page**** on Facebook (for 30 days, then watch the archive on YouTube). Follow TheChocolateLife on Facebook to receive notifications and catch up on other content. Participate/Watch on Facebook * * * ## **Episode 229** I have published dedicated Reading List posts in the past (search for “Reading List” to find them), as well making book recommendations in dozens of other posts. Most of those recommendations were physical books, and most of those come wrapped up in Amazon Affiliate Links. > Not in this post. Not in this episode. I am going to do something different in this post, which is to recommend some of my “must read” books, articles, and research papers that are difficult to find in physical form. * _What are those must reads?_ * _Why do I think they are must reads?_ * _And, where you can go to download FREE copies for yourself._ * * * ### **Resources** The must reads – and where I found them – will be shown during the episode and added to this page after the live stream ends. Upon reflection, I will recommend at least two physical books that provided interesting and much-needed context to my understanding of the history of chocolate. * * * ### Future Episodes 🗓️ __Friday, September 18th__ ****Celebrating(?) the 25th anniversary of the signing (on Sept 19, 2001) of the Harkin-Engel Protocol**** with confirmed special guests Terry Collingsworth and Miki Mistrati. * * * ### **Episode Hashtags** #cocoa #cacao #cacau #chocolate #chocolat #PodSaveChoc #PSC #LaVidaCocoa #TheChocolateLife * * * ### **#PodSaveChocolate and #TheChocolateLifeLIVE Archives** **To read an archived post** and find the links to watch archived episodes, click on one of the bookmark cards below. Pod Save Chocolate Calendar and ArchiveNews, views, and conversations on topics in cocoa and chocolate streamed live to YouTube, LinkedIn, and Facebook. #PodSaveChocolate!The Chocolate LifeClay Gordon Episodes 201-300 (links to older PSC archives are in the top nav). #TheChocolateLifeLIVE ArchiveNews, views, and conversations on topics in cocoa and chocolate streamed live to YouTube, LinkedIn, and Facebook.The Chocolate LifeClay Gordon ⁉️ After a year-long+ experiment, the audio-only versions of PodSaveChocolate episodes have been taken down after an end-of-year review. There were not enough listens to continue uploading episodes and paying for hosting. ## Not a Member? Live The Chocolate Life – Live La Vida Cocoa! Sign up for ****Free**** to comment and receive members-only content. Subscribe Email sent! Check your inbox to complete your signup. No spam. Unsubscribe anytime. Premium subscriptions available. * * *

🗓️ This stream begins at 10:00 ****MST**** (10:00 P****D**** T, 11:00 M****D**** T, 12:00 C****D**** T, 1:00 pm E****D**** T) on Tuesday, September 1st, 2026. Links below to watch LIVE and to view the archived episode. This ****YOUTUBE**** link is shareable. Watch and comment LIVE or view the archived episode! Subscribe (free!) to the @PodSaveChocolate YouTube channel, like this video, comment, and ****share**** this episode to help grow the #PSC community. Participate/Watch on YouTube This ****LINKEDIN**** link is shareable. Watch and comment LIVE or view the archived episode on LinkedIn. Join my network on LinkedIn to receive notifications and to refer business to each other. Participate/Watch on LinkedIn This ****FACEBOOK**** link is shareable Watch and comment LIVE or view the archived episode on ****TheChocolateLife page**** on Facebook (for 30 days, then watch the archive on YouTube). Follow TheChocolateLife on Facebook to receive notifications and catch up on other content. Participate/Watch on Facebook * * * ## **Episode 229** I have published dedicated Reading List posts in the past (search for “Reading List” to find them), as well making book recommendations in dozens of other posts. Most of those recommendations were physical books, and most of those come wrapped up in Amazon Affiliate Links. > Not in this post. Not in this episode. I am going to do something different in this post, which is to recommend some of my “must read” books, articles, and research papers that are difficult to find in physical form. * _What are those must reads?_ * _Why do I think they are must reads?_ * _And, where you can go to download FREE copies for yourself._ * * * ### **Resources** The must reads – and where I found them – will be shown during the episode and added to this page after the live stream ends. Upon reflection, I will recommend at least two physical books that provided interesting and much-needed context to my understanding of the history of chocolate. * * * ### Future Episodes 🗓️ __Friday, September 18th__ ****Celebrating(?) the 25th anniversary of the signing (on Sept 19, 2001) of the Harkin-Engel Protocol**** with confirmed special guests Terry Collingsworth and Miki Mistrati. * * * ### **Episode Hashtags** #cocoa #cacao #cacau #chocolate #chocolat #PodSaveChoc #PSC #LaVidaCocoa #TheChocolateLife * * * ### **#PodSaveChocolate and #TheChocolateLifeLIVE Archives** **To read an archived post** and find the links to watch archived episodes, click on one of the bookmark cards below. Pod Save Chocolate Calendar and ArchiveNews, views, and conversations on topics in cocoa and chocolate streamed live to YouTube, LinkedIn, and Facebook. #PodSaveChocolate!The Chocolate LifeClay Gordon Episodes 201-300 (links to older PSC archives are in the top nav). #TheChocolateLifeLIVE ArchiveNews, views, and conversations on topics in cocoa and chocolate streamed live to YouTube, LinkedIn, and Facebook.The Chocolate LifeClay Gordon ⁉️ After a year-long+ experiment, the audio-only versions of PodSaveChocolate episodes have been taken down after an end-of-year review. There were not enough listens to continue uploading episodes and paying for hosting. ## Not a Member? Live The Chocolate Life – Live La Vida Cocoa! Sign up for ****Free**** to comment and receive members-only content. Subscribe Email sent! Check your inbox to complete your signup. No spam. Unsubscribe anytime. Premium subscriptions available. * * *

🗓️ This stream begins at 10:00 ****MST**** (10:00 P****D**** T, 11:00 M****D**** T, 12:00 C****D**** T, 1:00 pm E****D**** T) on Friday, August 28th, 2026. Links below to watch LIVE and to view the archived episode. This ****YOUTUBE**** link is shareable. Watch and comment LIVE or view the archived episode! Subscribe (free!) to the @PodSaveChocolate YouTube channel, like this video, comment, and ****share**** this episode to help grow the #PSC community. Participate/Watch on YouTube This ****LINKEDIN**** link is shareable. Watch and comment LIVE or view the archived episode on LinkedIn. Join my network on LinkedIn to receive notifications and to refer business to each other. Participate/Watch on LinkedIn This ****FACEBOOK**** link is shareable Watch and comment LIVE or view the archived episode on ****TheChocolateLife page**** on Facebook (for 30 days, then watch the archive on YouTube). Follow TheChocolateLife on Facebook to receive notifications and catch up on other content. Participate/Watch on Facebook * * * ## **Episode 228** I asked regular ChocolateLife contributor Keith Ayoob to join me for Episode 226 of PodSaveChocolate because it involved taking a look at recent research on the effects of processing cacao with respect to health outcomes. While I have experience reading research reports and decoding them, understanding medical research reports requires special skills and experience to understand things like, “Was the methodology (study design) sound?” Processed Cacao & Health: Maybe Less ISN’T More | #PSC 226OVERVIEW: Episode 226 of #PodSaveChocolate, with guest contributor Keith Ayoob, takes a look at some new research that questions assertions that processing cacao is always a bad thing.The Chocolate LifeClay Gordon As the episode was closing down, Keith mentioned that the medical community has a “Ten Red Flags of Junk Science” communications program – which is the inspiration for this episode. I created my own set of ten “signs” that a health claim you run across on the Internet might be “junk science,” a scam, or both, and that’s what I am going to cover in this episode. > I created a presentation slide deck that I will use for the presentation. After the episode is over I will generate a link on this page so you can download it as a PDF. I created a slide for each of the ten signs. On each slide is a “How It Shows Up” list of points to consider, followed by how a well-known cardiothoracic surgeon cosplaying on the Internet as a nutritionist – Dr Steven Gundry – fits the pattern as a purveyor of junk health claims. I then connect the patterns to recent episodes covering the claims of Layne Kilpatrick and Maïa Ceremonial Cacao. Who the Heck is Layne Kilpatrick? Part 2 of 2 | #PSC 205OVERVIEW: Episode 205 of #PodSaveChocolate deconstructs and debunks the final instalment of Kilpatrick’s fearmongering series demonizing lab-crown cocoa and gene-edited cacao trees. Brandolini and Cervantes would be proud?The Chocolate LifeClay GordonUpdated: Who the Heck is Layne Kilpatrick? Part 1 of 2 | #PSC 203OVERVIEW: Episode 203 of #PodSaveChocolate casts a critical eye on the musings of this struck-off pharmacist and current self-styled hormone doctor and what he has to say about “lab-grown” cocoa and chocolate, and much, much more.The Chocolate LifeClay GordonIs Maïa Ceremonial Cacao a Scam? | #PSC 179Episode 179 of PodSaveChocolate examines the health claims made about and for Maïa’s “#Ceremonial Cacao.” Are they believable? Should you trust them? Why – or why not?The Chocolate LifeClay Gordon * * * ### Future Episodes 🗓️ __Friday, September 18th__ ****Celebrating(?) the 25th anniversary of the signing (on Sept 19, 2001) of the Harkin-Engel Protocol**** with confirmed special guests Terry Collingsworth and Miki Mistrati. * * * ### **Episode Hashtags** #cocoa #cacao #cacau #chocolate #chocolat #PodSaveChoc #PSC #LaVidaCocoa #TheChocolateLife * * * ### **#PodSaveChocolate and #TheChocolateLifeLIVE Archives** **To read an archived post** and find the links to watch archived episodes, click on one of the bookmark cards below. Pod Save Chocolate Calendar and ArchiveNews, views, and conversations on topics in cocoa and chocolate streamed live to YouTube, LinkedIn, and Facebook. #PodSaveChocolate!The Chocolate LifeClay Gordon Episodes 201-300 (links to older PSC archives are in the top nav). #TheChocolateLifeLIVE ArchiveNews, views, and conversations on topics in cocoa and chocolate streamed live to YouTube, LinkedIn, and Facebook.The Chocolate LifeClay Gordon ⁉️ After a year-long+ experiment, the audio-only versions of PodSaveChocolate episodes have been taken down after an end-of-year review. There were not enough listens to continue uploading episodes and paying for hosting. ## Not a Member? Live The Chocolate Life – Live La Vida Cocoa! Sign up for ****Free**** to comment and receive members-only content. Subscribe Email sent! Check your inbox to complete your signup. No spam. Unsubscribe anytime. Premium subscriptions available. * * *

🗓️ This stream begins at 10:00 ****MST**** (10:00 P****D**** T, 11:00 M****D**** T, 12:00 C****D**** T, 1:00 pm E****D**** T) on Friday, August 28th, 2026. Links below to watch LIVE and to view the archived episode. This ****YOUTUBE**** link is shareable. Watch and comment LIVE or view the archived episode! Subscribe (free!) to the @PodSaveChocolate YouTube channel, like this video, comment, and ****share**** this episode to help grow the #PSC community. Participate/Watch on YouTube This ****LINKEDIN**** link is shareable. Watch and comment LIVE or view the archived episode on LinkedIn. Join my network on LinkedIn to receive notifications and to refer business to each other. Participate/Watch on LinkedIn This ****FACEBOOK**** link is shareable Watch and comment LIVE or view the archived episode on ****TheChocolateLife page**** on Facebook (for 30 days, then watch the archive on YouTube). Follow TheChocolateLife on Facebook to receive notifications and catch up on other content. Participate/Watch on Facebook * * * ## **Episode 228** I asked regular ChocolateLife contributor Keith Ayoob to join me for Episode 226 of PodSaveChocolate because it involved taking a look at recent research on the effects of processing cacao with respect to health outcomes. While I have experience reading research reports and decoding them, understanding medical research reports requires special skills and experience to understand things like, “Was the methodology (study design) sound?” Processed Cacao & Health: Maybe Less ISN’T More | #PSC 226OVERVIEW: Episode 226 of #PodSaveChocolate, with guest contributor Keith Ayoob, takes a look at some new research that questions assertions that processing cacao is always a bad thing.The Chocolate LifeClay Gordon As the episode was closing down, Keith mentioned that the medical community has a “Ten Red Flags of Junk Science” communications program – which is the inspiration for this episode. I created my own set of ten “signs” that a health claim you run across on the Internet might be “junk science,” a scam, or both, and that’s what I am going to cover in this episode. > I created a presentation slide deck that I will use for the presentation. After the episode is over I will generate a link on this page so you can download it as a PDF. I created a slide for each of the ten signs. On each slide is a “How It Shows Up” list of points to consider, followed by how a well-known cardiothoracic surgeon cosplaying on the Internet as a nutritionist – Dr Steven Gundry – fits the pattern as a purveyor of junk health claims. I then connect the patterns to recent episodes covering the claims of Layne Kilpatrick and Maïa Ceremonial Cacao. Who the Heck is Layne Kilpatrick? Part 2 of 2 | #PSC 205OVERVIEW: Episode 205 of #PodSaveChocolate deconstructs and debunks the final instalment of Kilpatrick’s fearmongering series demonizing lab-crown cocoa and gene-edited cacao trees. Brandolini and Cervantes would be proud?The Chocolate LifeClay GordonUpdated: Who the Heck is Layne Kilpatrick? Part 1 of 2 | #PSC 203OVERVIEW: Episode 203 of #PodSaveChocolate casts a critical eye on the musings of this struck-off pharmacist and current self-styled hormone doctor and what he has to say about “lab-grown” cocoa and chocolate, and much, much more.The Chocolate LifeClay GordonIs Maïa Ceremonial Cacao a Scam? | #PSC 179Episode 179 of PodSaveChocolate examines the health claims made about and for Maïa’s “#Ceremonial Cacao.” Are they believable? Should you trust them? Why – or why not?The Chocolate LifeClay Gordon * * * ### Future Episodes 🗓️ __Friday, September 18th__ ****Celebrating(?) the 25th anniversary of the signing (on Sept 19, 2001) of the Harkin-Engel Protocol**** with confirmed special guests Terry Collingsworth and Miki Mistrati. * * * ### **Episode Hashtags** #cocoa #cacao #cacau #chocolate #chocolat #PodSaveChoc #PSC #LaVidaCocoa #TheChocolateLife * * * ### **#PodSaveChocolate and #TheChocolateLifeLIVE Archives** **To read an archived post** and find the links to watch archived episodes, click on one of the bookmark cards below. Pod Save Chocolate Calendar and ArchiveNews, views, and conversations on topics in cocoa and chocolate streamed live to YouTube, LinkedIn, and Facebook. #PodSaveChocolate!The Chocolate LifeClay Gordon Episodes 201-300 (links to older PSC archives are in the top nav). #TheChocolateLifeLIVE ArchiveNews, views, and conversations on topics in cocoa and chocolate streamed live to YouTube, LinkedIn, and Facebook.The Chocolate LifeClay Gordon ⁉️ After a year-long+ experiment, the audio-only versions of PodSaveChocolate episodes have been taken down after an end-of-year review. There were not enough listens to continue uploading episodes and paying for hosting. ## Not a Member? Live The Chocolate Life – Live La Vida Cocoa! Sign up for ****Free**** to comment and receive members-only content. Subscribe Email sent! Check your inbox to complete your signup. No spam. Unsubscribe anytime. Premium subscriptions available. * * *

🗓️ This stream begins at 10:00 ****MST**** (10:00 P****D**** T, 11:00 M****D**** T, 12:00 C****D**** T, 1:00 pm E****D**** T) on Friday, August 21st, 2026. Links below to watch LIVE and to view the archived episode. This ****YOUTUBE**** link is shareable. Watch and comment LIVE or view the archived episode! Subscribe (free!) to the @PodSaveChocolate YouTube channel, like this video, comment, and ****share**** this episode to help grow the #PSC community. Participate/Watch on YouTube This ****LINKEDIN**** link is shareable. Watch and comment LIVE or view the archived episode on LinkedIn. Join my network on LinkedIn to receive notifications and to refer business to each other. Participate/Watch on LinkedIn This ****FACEBOOK**** link is shareable Watch and comment LIVE or view the archived episode on ****TheChocolateLife page**** on Facebook (for 30 days, then watch the archive on YouTube). Follow TheChocolateLife on Facebook to receive notifications and catch up on other content. Participate/Watch on Facebook * * * ## **Episode 227** “Direct trade,” like “bean-to-bar,” and “craft/artisan” is one of those terms that has no one settled definition. But, like most things in chocolate and cocoa, precise definitions **_matter_**. In this episode of PodSaveChocolate we’ll take a stab at arriving at a definition for Direct Trade that covers **_all_** of the essential bases without including concepts that confuse the discussion, making it more difficult to gain broad acceptance. * * * ### Future Episodes 🗓️ __Tuesday, August 25th__ ****Ten Red Flags of Junk Science –**** this is a topic that came up during PSC Ep 226 featuring Keith Ayoob. 🗓️ __Friday, September 18th__ ****Celebrating(?) the 25th anniversary of the signing (on Sept 19, 2001) of the Harkin-Engel Protocol**** with confirmed special guests Terry Collingsworth and Miki Mistrati. * * * ### **Episode Hashtags** #DirectTrade #cocoa #cacao #cacau #chocolate #chocolat #PodSaveChoc #PSC #LaVidaCocoa #TheChocolateLife * * * ### **#PodSaveChocolate and #TheChocolateLifeLIVE Archives** **To read an archived post** and find the links to watch archived episodes, click on one of the bookmark cards below. Pod Save Chocolate Calendar and ArchiveNews, views, and conversations on topics in cocoa and chocolate streamed live to YouTube, LinkedIn, and Facebook. #PodSaveChocolate!The Chocolate LifeClay Gordon Episodes 201-300 (links to older PSC archives are in the top nav). #TheChocolateLifeLIVE ArchiveNews, views, and conversations on topics in cocoa and chocolate streamed live to YouTube, LinkedIn, and Facebook.The Chocolate LifeClay Gordon ⁉️ After a year-long+ experiment, the audio-only versions of PodSaveChocolate episodes have been taken down after an end-of-year review. There were not enough listens to continue uploading episodes and paying for hosting. ## Not a Member? Live The Chocolate Life – Live La Vida Cocoa! Sign up for ****Free**** to comment and receive members-only content. Subscribe Email sent! Check your inbox to complete your signup. No spam. Unsubscribe anytime. Premium subscriptions available. * * *

OVERVIEW: Episode 226 of #PodSaveChocolate, with guest contributor Keith Ayoob, takes a look at some new research that questions assertions that processing cacao is always a bad thing.

🗓️ This stream begins at 10:00 ****MST**** (10:00 P****D**** T, 11:00 M****D**** T, 12:00 C****D**** T, 1:00 pm E****D**** T) on Friday, June 5th, 2026. Links below to watch LIVE and to view the archived episode. This ****YOUTUBE**** link is shareable. Watch and comment LIVE or view the archived episode! Subscribe (free!) to the @PodSaveChocolate YouTube channel, like this video, comment, and ****share**** this episode to help grow the #PSC community. Participate/Watch on YouTube This ****LINKEDIN**** link is shareable. Watch and comment LIVE or view the archived episode on LinkedIn. Join my network on LinkedIn to receive notifications and to refer business to each other. Participate/Watch on LinkedIn This ****FACEBOOK**** link is shareable Watch and comment LIVE or view the archived episode on ****TheChocolateLife page**** on Facebook (for 30 days, then watch the archive on YouTube). Follow TheChocolateLife on Facebook to receive notifications and catch up on other content. Participate/Watch on Facebook * * * ## **Episode 207 Overview** The Wednesday, June 3rd, issue of the Confectionery News newsletter was titled: **SPECIAL EDITION: The Future of Chocolate** : After the last episode’s focus on my journey to today, I thought a good topic for this episode would be taking another look at “**The Future of Chocolate** ” – a topic I have covered extensively in the past. (See bookmark cards below.) This episode of PodSaveChocolate will take its jumping-off point from these two paragraphs in The Future of Chocolate email from _Confectionery News_ … > Record-breaking prices, driven by a combination of climate shocks in West Africa, persistent structural supply constraints, and evolving regulatory pressures, have forced suppliers and manufacturers to ask a fundamental question – what does the future of chocolate look like when cocoa’s future is increasingly uncertain? > > At the heart of this conversation is resilience. For decades, the industry has grappled with well-documented challenges in cocoa production – farmer livelihoods, deforestation, ageing [sic] trees, and underinvestment in origin countries. What feels different now is the urgency. Extreme weather events are no longer anomalies but recurring disruptions, and the long-discussed fragility of global supply chains is now fully visible in price and supply-chain issues. … and the following text from the Thursday, June 4th edition of _Cocoa Radar,_ which echoes industry concerns referred to euphemistically by Confectionery News as “extreme weather events”: > Growing evidence reinforces concerns that El Niño could pose a major threat to global cocoa supplies during the 2026-27 season, particularly across key West African producing regions. [Quoting Barry Callebaut CEO Hein Schumacher warning that “developing El Niño conditions could add “**a few thousand _pounds [Sterling, £]_ per metric ton**” to cocoa prices.] ### **Wt __a__ Future?** Before we begin, I don’t think there is a “the” future for chocolate. There are possible futures, and many, if not most of them, are not so favorable when it comes to Specialty Chocolate and cocoa, because **_without Specialty Cocoa there is no Specialty Chocolate_**. > Unless **we** do something to change course. That out of the way, I don’t think it’s unfair to say that the systemic lack of investment in cocoa farming and cocoa farmers by Big Chocolate, even before the signing of the Harkin-Engel Protocol [[1]] {«Wikipedia}, is THE major contributor to the position the chocolate industry writ large finds itself in today. [[1]]:The protocol was signed in September 2001. Joint Statements in 2001, 2005 and 2008 and a Joint Declaration in 2010 extended the commitment to address the problem. The industry's pledge to reduce child labor in Ivory Coast and Ghana by 70%, as per the Protocol, had not been met by late 2015; the deadline was again extended to 2020. 2025? Still crickets. > Volatility in the price of cocoa as a direct result of bad weather (El Niño and La Niña), exacerbated by climate change and deforestation (for _all_ reasons), was and remains, inevitable. During the recent spike in the price of cocoa on the futures exchanges to over $12,000/MT, _Big Chocolate learned nothing_. Well, that’s not entirely true: > They learned the **wrong** lessons. Big Chocolate thinks it can “control” the price of cocoa through a combination of: 1. Complex hedging strategies, and 2. Pointing fingers and laying the blame at the feet of others, and 3. Sticking their heads in the sand like ostriches and (to mix metaphors) crossing their fingers while ingesting large quantities of hopium that the rains, in just the right amounts, will come when it’s convenient for market soothsayers. Looking at Big Chocolate’s behavior, I am reminded of the phrase _**Run away!,**_ famously associated with the Knights of the Round Table in _Monty Python and the Holy Grail._ It is used humorously as a comedic battle cry when the knights face danger. But it’s not funny in this context. > Life is not a movie, and Big Chocolate faces an existential crisis. As do the millions of families whose lives and livelihoods depend on cocoa farming. Big Chocolate is facing multiple dangers, and they are choosing to **Run Away!** Cocoa Radar explicitly names one of the dangers – El Niñ0. The Confectionery News article names other well-documented challenges: farmer livelihoods, deforestation, ageing [sic] trees, and underinvestment in [producing] countries. But what Confectionery News also documents that Big Chocolate’s response is to **Run Away!** from the challenges, shambling pell-mell toward: alt.cocoa (or as I like to call them, “**choc-_alikes_** ”). Put simply, Big Chocolate companies are looking to de-risk their supply chains, and choc-_alikes_ are the pathway they are leaning into heavily. 1. All of the companies developing the technologies (cell culturing, precision fermentation, gas fermentation, etc.) can be **invested** in. Those companies are all privately-held, for the moment, but if they IPO or are acquired, early investors stand to reap windfall profits – 10x to 1000x their investment – for their shareholders (with fat bonuses for C-Suite execs) within a decade or less. _Not a penny will go to farmers._ 2. Not one of these companies is headquartered in a producing country. All of the trickle-down (_tinkle_ -down?) benefits of the investments, such as constructing facilities, will inure to the workers and companies where the construction occurs and the equipment is built. _Not a penny will go to farmers._ 3. Ingredient supply chains are shorter. Grains, seeds, and other agricultural and chemical inputs are sourced in the US and the EU. None of those inputs is subject to the EUDR. Because supply chains are shorter, companies claim they are more sustainable. They use less water. They have a smaller carbon footprint. Those are the claims, but the technologies have not ramped up to production scale, so a life cycle assessment (LCA) done today may not accurately reflect a “cradle-to-grave” assessment when the tech is mature. _Will even a penny go to farmers? What do**you** think?_ ### **TL;DR** Globally, the markets for chocolate (real and choc-alikes) and cocoa generate an estimated $250 BILLION in turnover annually. How much has Big Chocolate earmarked for farmers to help them make this “transition”? > Jeopardy theme playing quietly in the background … The only concrete farmer-support initiative I could find with committed funding is … The Alter Eco Foundation, with $1.5 million committed to, “help transition cacao farmers** _in its supply chain_** while driving awareness about regenerative farming.” Barry Callebaut? Mondelēz? Puratos/Belcolade? Meiji? Lindt? Hershey? _Not a penny in committed funding. Just vague promises, exactly like the ones they’ve been making (and kicking down the road) since the Harkin-Engel protocol was enacted in September 2001, about three months after I started down the path to my ChocolateLife._ * * * 25th Anniversary Lifetime Membership offer ****I began my career**** as a professional chocolate critic, journalist, consultant, and educator 25 years ago. To help me celebrate, I hope you will consider becoming a _****Lifetime****_ Member! ****This offer is**** _****only****_****available May 25 – June 30, 2026.**** Learn More About Lifetime Membership! * * * ### Two Alternative Approaches Ignoring the fearmongering of Layne Kilpatrick (explored here and here), Mars is investing in genetic research that _may_ lead to varieties that are climate resilient and more resistant to diseases such as cocoa swollen shoot virus (CSSV), currently devastating yields in West Africa. However, there are huge technical, economic, political, and social barriers to the widespread planting of gene-edited cacao trees. **Another approach I ran across on LinkedIn this week** _seemed that it might be_ promising, but it did not stand up to fact-checking. Kiyan FZCo (headquartered in Dubai) is engaged in R&D, production, and sale of oils, fats, and agro-commodities. Their Cocoaless™ product range consists of cocoa butter equivalents/replacements (CBEs, CBRs) for chocolate and confectionery applications made from shea, mango, and other sources. > There was some speculation on LinkedIn that those sources included _Theobroma grandiflorum_ , aka cupuaçu, but that turned out to** _not_** be the case. But that speculation led me to explore how much _t. grandiflorum_ production there is, where _t. grandiflorum_ is (and is not) grown, and if _t. grandiflorum_ might be resistant to CSSV. I also made a detour to examine how cupuaçu butter affects the tempering and stability of cocoa butter. That then led me down another rabbit hole (because, of course it did): _t. bicolor_. I will share what I learned about _t. grandiflorum_ and _t. bicolor_ during the episode, along with more details about my exploration of choc-_alikes_. * * * ### **What We All Can Do** Because I am who I am, I asked an LLM to conjure up some language for posting on X and Instagram. I will share some of those, and maybe an image or two that can accompany them during the episode. After the episode, I will update this post with the ones I shared, and maybe some others. (They _all_ need editing, because, well, LLMs.) * * * ### _Other takes on this topic_ The Future of Cocoa is ... Chocolate | #PSC 163Episode 163 of #PodSaveChocolate will present ideas to address the past, present, and future of cocoa, suggesting ways to navigate our way out of the current crisis. To many, chocolate is not the obvious starting point, but by the end of the episode, my hope is that you will. [updated]The Chocolate LifeClay GordonARS 1000: The Future of Cocoa? | #PSC 160Episode 160 of #PodSaveChocolate casts a critical look at ARS 1000, a continent-wide framework for sustainable cocoa. What is its future? Will the idea spread to other cocoa-producing regions? [updated]The Chocolate LifeClay GordonIs A Regenerative Ag Future Enough? | #PodSaveChocolateEpisode 18 of #PodSaveChocolate features a discussion of Regenerative Agriculture compared with Agroforestry and other approaches – some ancient and some modern.The Chocolate LifeClay GordonTheChocolateLifeLIVE – The $100 Chocolate BarEpisode 76 of #TheChocolateLifeLIVE streams from 12:00~13:00 EST on Friday, December 23rd.The Chocolate LifeTheChocolateWire Also, this post. * * * ### **Future PodSaveChocolate Episodes** Most of the episodes in June will explore key moments in my journey and how they have influenced the future directions I want to take. I encourage everyone to join me for the June News/AMA episode on Tuesday, June 9th, where I'll answer your questions live! 🗓️ Tuesday, June 9th June News & AMA (about chocolate or cocoa) * * * ### **#PodSaveChocolate and #TheChocolateLifeLIVE Archives** **To read an archived post** and find the links to watch archived episodes, click on one of the bookmark cards below. Pod Save Chocolate Calendar and ArchiveNews, views, and conversations on topics in cocoa and chocolate streamed live to YouTube, LinkedIn, and Facebook. #PodSaveChocolate!The Chocolate LifeClay Gordon#TheChocolateLifeLIVE ArchiveNews, views, and conversations on topics in cocoa and chocolate streamed live to YouTube, LinkedIn, and Facebook.The Chocolate LifeClay Gordon ⁉️ After a year-long+ experiment, the audio-only versions of PodSaveChocolate episodes have been taken down after an end-of-year review. There were not enough listens to continue uploading episodes and paying for hosting. * * * ### **Episode Hashtags** #cocoa #cacao #cacau #chocolate #chocolat #craftchocolate #PodSaveChoc #PSC #LaVidaCocoa #TheChocolateLife

🗓️ This stream begins at 10:00 ****MST**** (10:00 P****D**** T, 11:00 M****D**** T, 12:00 C****D**** T, 1:00 pm E****D**** T) on Tuesday, June 2nd, 2026. Links below to watch LIVE and to view the archived episode. This ****YOUTUBE**** link is shareable. Watch and comment LIVE or view the archived episode! Subscribe (free!) to the @PodSaveChocolate YouTube channel, like this video, comment, and ****share**** this episode to help grow the #PSC community. Participate/Watch on YouTube This ****LINKEDIN**** link is shareable. Watch and comment LIVE or view the archived episode on LinkedIn. Join my network on LinkedIn to receive notifications and to refer business to each other. Participate/Watch on LinkedIn This ****FACEBOOK**** link is shareable Watch and comment LIVE or view the archived episode on ****TheChocolateLife page**** on Facebook (for 30 days, then watch the archive on YouTube). Follow TheChocolateLife on Facebook to receive notifications and catch up on other content. Participate/Watch on Facebook * * * ## **Episode 206 Overview** In the beginning: About TheChocolateLifeWhether you are new to TheChocolateLife or a long-time member, this post contains the official, abbreviated history of the site. [ Updated May 15, 2026 ]The Chocolate LifeClay Gordon The first site snapshot by the Archive.org Wayback Machine was on June 2nd, 25 years ago. **Prologue** 📆 What the heck __is__ TheChocolateLife, anyway? **_Before_** the beginning: Everything I have done since 1996 has led, not necessarily in a straight line, to where I am today. While June 2nd, 2001, is the oldest evidence of my debut as a professional chocolate critic, my chocolate journey began in the south of France in February 1994. That is when I accidentally discovered Bonnat single-origin chocolate. (Coincidentally, that was ten years after Maison Bonnat introduced their original single-origin bar line for the 100th anniversary of their beginning to manufacture chocolate. The family history in pastry, cocoa, and more stretches back to the 1750s.) About a month later, I had an entrepreneurial epiphany: I realized that while there were professional critics for just about everything you can think of, there were no _professional_ critics whose focus was on chocolate. So I decided to become the first. I had no idea what I needed to learn, who I could learn it from, where I could go to learn, I didn’t even know what it meant to be a professional chocolate critic. But I trusted my intuition, based on experience, that I had five to ten years to figure it out before the market caught up with my insight. 📆 A short detour to discuss some highlights of my journey between 1983 and 2001. – Joining my first high-tech startup (1983) – Writing for trade journals (1984 – present) – Attending TED 2 – Consulting clients (IBM, Agfa, Time Warner, Silicon Graphics ...) – Working for the first HD video company in the US (1991-1992) – Co-founder of Enfish Technologies (1993) – MILIA (1994-1998) – My first book ... on HD video production (1995-96) – My first copy of __The True History of Chocolate__ – Scharffen Berger launches – Traveling to Voiron to meet Stéphane Bonnat (1998) – Being introduced to Cluizel Nuanciers (1998) – Working with Pierrick Chouard (1999 – 2003) The first time I stepped out in public as a chocolate critic was at the 2001 Summer Fancy Food Show. There, I met Gary Guittard, who listened to my thoughts about where the market was going, encouraging me to continue. I also met Freddy Schilling, one of the co-founders of Dagoba Chocolate. These meetings, and others, gave me the confidence to continue. 📆 Key experiences between 2001 and 2005: – My last high-tech startup and full-time job (9/2001-6/2002). – Establishing continuity with Guittard and others. – Writing for Chocolatier Magazine – Working the World Pastry Forum and Team Championships – Trips to Ecuador in 2003 and 2005 📆 The importance of writing and publishing __Discover Chocolate,__ not understanding that it was __not__ the book that specialty chocolate needed. **Status check:** All of the above, and countless other experiences, set the foundation for what I want to do – with your help – over the next decade. (That’s right, I have set myself a goal for 2035, and am actively working to make it happen.) * * * 25th Anniversary Lifetime Membership offer To help me celebrate my 25th anniversary, I hope you will consider becoming a _****Lifetime****_ Member! ****This offer is**** _****only****_****available May 25 – June 30, 2026.**** Learn More About Lifetime Membership! **Looking to the future:** 💡 Taking care of old business, __my own 9th step.__ 💡 My 25th Anniversary Celebration Tasting Event Save the date: Thursday, November 5th Coincides with the Midwest Craft Chocolate Festival Featuring Craft Chocolat Challenge winners 💡 Writing the book I _****should****_ have written back in 2006/2007 but didn’t understand its importance, relative to craft beer, specialty chocolate, cheese, related fermented foods and beverages. 💡 Accelerating the data collection projects to make it possible to grasp a better understanding of the economic and social impact that specialty chocolate and cocoa have made – __and will continue to make.__ 💡 Establishing an NGO __designed from the ground up to address the key structural and governance issues that make it impossible__ for FCIA, World Cocoa Foundation, ICI, CFI, Fairtrade, Rainforest Alliance, VOICE Network, et al, to deliver meaningful, lasting change in the worlds of chocolate and cocoa: The Specialty Chocolate and Cocoa Alliance International (SCCAI – pronounced “sky”). * * * ### **Future PodSaveChocolate Episodes** Most of the episodes in June will explore key moments in my journey and how they have influenced the future directions I want to take. I encourage everyone to join me for the June News/AMA episode on Tuesday, June 9th with questions for me to answer LIVE! 🗓️ Tuesday, June 9th June News & AMA (about chocolate or cocoa) * * * ### **#PodSaveChocolate and #TheChocolateLifeLIVE Archives** **To read an archived post** and find the links to watch archived episodes, click on one of the bookmark cards below. Pod Save Chocolate Calendar and ArchiveNews, views, and conversations on topics in cocoa and chocolate streamed live to YouTube, LinkedIn, and Facebook. #PodSaveChocolate!The Chocolate LifeClay Gordon#TheChocolateLifeLIVE ArchiveNews, views, and conversations on topics in cocoa and chocolate streamed live to YouTube, LinkedIn, and Facebook.The Chocolate LifeClay Gordon ⁉️ After a year-long+ experiment, the audio-only versions of PodSaveChocolate episodes have been taken down after an end-of-year review. There were not enough listens to continue uploading episodes and paying for hosting. * * * ### **Episode Hashtags** #cocoa #cacao #cacau #chocolate #chocolat #craftchocolate #PodSaveChoc #PSC #LaVidaCocoa #TheChocolateLife

🗓️ This stream begins at 10:00 ****MST**** (10:00 P****D**** T, 11:00 M****D**** T, 12:00 C****D**** T, 1:00 pm E****D**** T) on day, May 29th, 2026. Links below to watch LIVE and to view the archived episode. This ****YOUTUBE**** link is shareable. Watch and comment LIVE or view the archived episode! Subscribe (free!) to the @PodSaveChocolate YouTube channel, like this video, comment, and ****share**** this episode to help grow the #PSC community. Participate/Watch on YouTube This ****LINKEDIN**** link is shareable. Watch and comment LIVE or view the archived episode on LinkedIn. Join my network on LinkedIn to receive notifications and to refer business to each other. Participate/Watch on LinkedIn This ****FACEBOOK**** link is shareable Watch and comment LIVE or view the archived episode on ****TheChocolateLife page**** on Facebook (for 30 days, then watch the archive on YouTube). Follow TheChocolateLife on Facebook to receive notifications and catch up on other content. Participate/Watch on Facebook * * * ## **Episode 205 Overview** One point I made in the previous episode (bookmark card below) is that Kilpatrick has a large and engaged following on social media, with over one million followers on Instagram and nearly 500k followers on TikTok: _He has an audience of listeners who not only watch, but also engage through liking, sharing, and commenting._ Updated: Who the Heck is Layne Kilpatrick? Part 1 of 2 | #PSC 203OVERVIEW: Episode 203 of #PodSaveChocolate casts a critical eye on the musings of this struck-off pharmacist and current self-styled hormone doctor and what he has to say about “lab-grown” cocoa and chocolate, and much, much more.The Chocolate LifeClay Gordon I cover Layne’s assertions in parts 1 – 3 of his series in this post. You may wish to read my responses (the video is 90 minutes long) before continuing. What Kilpatrick can “achieve” in a series of four, under two-minute shorts published on multiple platforms (like this series) takes **_exponentially more effort to combat_** effectively on a much smaller platform like TheChocolateLife, which fact is eloquently stated in Brandolini’s Law: > **The amount of energy needed to refute misinformation is significantly greater than the effort required to create and spread it.** While this effort may be me tilting at windmills (again h/t M. Ceravantes), it’s a campaign I am happy to lead. Is _**anyone**_ else pushing back? Bueller? _Bueller?_ The format Kilpatrick uses (“shorts” on YouTube, Instagram, TikTok, and Facebook) inherently discourages exploring nuance, favoring and amplifying outrage, indignation, personal incredulity, and conspiracy theories. What makes Kilpatrick’s assertions harder to deconstruct and combat is that there are kernels of verifiable fact in many of his assertions – at least in these four shorts that I am responding to. Kilpatrick’s sheep, er, I mean _followers_ , will seize upon and hold tightly to facts that reinforce their suspicions (a phenomenon known as “confirmation bias”) and overlook or outright dismiss anything that is counterfactual, even if it causes cognitive dissonance. I spent many hours writing the post for episode 203, and the livestream itself lasted about 90 minutes. The first three of Kilpatrick’s shorts lasted less than six minutes. The four-part series unfolds in under eight minutes. My responses total over 7,000 words and have taken _many_ hours to research and compose. **_Brandolini in action!_** * * * ### **Recap – How I Got Here** **Credential Checking:** Kilpatrick is a “struck off” pharmacist in California who had his pharmacist license and pharmacy permit revoked due to serious unprofessional conduct involving probation violations, drug diversion at a prison pharmacy, unlawful possession of controlled substances, self‑prescribing, and mishandling of patient records. Furthermore, his only formal medical education on record is in pharmacy (he has a BA/BS in Pharmacy from the University of Utah (1989), which identifies him as a clinical pharmacist (RPh)), and there is no publicly documented medical, endocrinology, or hormone‑specific board certification or accreditation that would independently support presenting himself as a “hormone specialist” in the sense that term usually implies (i.e., a licensed medical specialist in hormones). ⁉️ Does this mean that Kilpatrick is a sCAM (complementary and alternative medicine) artist? I am not saying he is. __Just asking questions.__ **Part/Step 1:** Start with some easily fact-checkable points to establish to an audience primed to believe and willing to “do their own research” (which means either Googling or using ChatGPT like a search engine). **Part/Step 2:** Once you’ve got them hooked, pivot to a different target and start developing the basis for unholy strawman arguments. **Part/Step 3:** Stand up and lean into the strawman arguments, lacing them with an unhealthy dose of conspiracy theorizing to scare people: **Big Food tech** is out to fool you, and they think you’re too dumb to notice _**THE! TRUTH!** (Which I am about to reveal to you at great personal risk!) “They” don’t want you to know about their **evil plans** to **secretly** turn every cacao tree on the planet into a deadly **GMO** ‽_ ### ** _Step 4: In this short ..._** _... Kilpatrick will_ 1. Build on the “foundation” of the previous shorts, scare the living daylights out of his followers with the spectre of globalist collusion. Then ... 2. Confidently propose a “solution” that, while _theoretically_ __might_ be _possible, may not be practically achievable (and, in some jurisdictions, has already been regulated against, but don’t share those facts with his followers), while ... 3. Also claiming that the boogeyman he’s set up to take the fall already knows the solution and is purposefully hiding it from everyone! Lab-made Cocoa - Part 4 of 4Mars is gene-editing cacao trees in California. So who now owns the cacao tree? The pollen carrying the proprietary DNA will reach West Africa. And under exi…YouTube Wild hyperbole and AI slop. What a combination? > **Note:** Anything from this point on that is presented in this paragraph style is the video transcript. My responses are presented in different styles and colors, as in the callout below. A green callout means a statement in the transcript is true or largely true, for example. 🤓 I did not make inline edits in the transcript except to correct spelling and introduce paragraph breaks for me to respond to. The transcription process is not perfect and so any grammar that might not make sense is not as a result of any editing on my part. Kilpatrick TRANSCRIPT_Lab-made Cocoa - Part 4 of 4 w timestampsThis is the raw file I downloaded; you can check it against the below.Kilpatrick TRANSCRIPT_Lab-made Cocoa - Part 4 of 4 w timestamps.txt3 KBdownload-circle * * * ### **Before I Dive Down Kilpatrick’s Rabbit Hole ...** What’s _really_ important to understand as you watch the short or read the transcript is that **_the central thesis makes zero sense, economically, politically, or socially_** , based on a key misunderstanding: There are fundamental differences between annual seed crops (like corn and soy) and tree crops like cacao. Differences that Kilpatrick does not factor into his arguments. ⁉️ Is this because they are inconvenient truths (to borrow a meme), and so he deliberately does not mention them? Or is it because he is not an expert in cacao farming (or any farming or gardening) and is unaware of the distinction? Either way, __the entire argument is a strawman.__ The value of an annual seed crop patent (which needs to be enforced to remain enforceable) relies on farmers having to buy seeds every year. For example, “Roundup Ready” corn and soy command as much as a 2x premium over conventional seed. (The premium can be much higher if the seed contains multiple patented genes.) Any “theft” of the gene-edited seed, even if accidental, can reduce the income to the patent-holder significantly. Between 32-35 million Ha are planted in soy in the US. _Billions are at stake each year for soy alone_. **_In the US alone._** Cacao is a tree crop. It can take between one-and-a-half to three years for a tree to start producing, and between three and five years for a tree to become fully productive. Trees can produce for decades, but tend to be most productive for between twenty and thirty years. (Genetics and agricultural and other farming practices alter these productivity windows.) Producing a new cacao tree seedling, from seed or by grafting, takes much more effort than planting corn or soy seeds. In part, this is because the planting does not happen in situ. Seeds are propagated in a nursery and then transplanted into the field one at a time into holes that have to be dug for each seedling. There is no machinery to do this; it’s all done by hand. Grafting takes a similar path. Rootstock is propagated in a nursery, and the scion (the part that gets grafted onto the rootstock) is gathered from “mother” trees known to have the desired characteristics. The newly grafted pair remains in the nursery until confirmation that the graft is successful (100% success is rare), before being transplanted into the field. One at a time. _By hand._ ⁉️ It __is__ possible to clone genetic material in a laboratory through a process called ****somatic embryogenesis**** , which enables the growth of genetically identical seedlings in very large quantities. However, the technical infrastructure to do this is very expensive and needs to be built within a reasonable distance from the farms where the seedlings will eventually be transplanted. While growing the seedlings is highly scalable, the facilities and the planting labor? Not so much. * One farmer riding a seed drill can plant up to 100Ha of soy or corn – _millions of seeds_ – in a day. The planted seeds will generate a return within months. * It takes _months_ and hundreds of hours of labor to plant even a single hectare of new cacao trees from seeds or grafts. The planted trees won’t start generating ROI for years, and will be productive for decades. The farmer won’t need to replant for two to four decades, if ever. Patent-holders are not selling billions of seeds every year. That’s one fundamental difference Kilpatrick doesn’t include in his calculations or share with his followers. ⁉️ And then you have to ask yourself, ****“Why would a company like Mars want to own cacao farms**** _****in the first place?****_****”**** If there is one thing we can take away from the chocolate industry’s efforts to evade responsibility for illegal labor in their cocoa supply chains for the past twenty-plus years, it’s that they don’t want to have _any_ of the risks associated with **_owning_** farms on their balance sheets. Kilpatrick asserts, without evidence, that the _only_ “logical” [my word, not his] remedy that a company like Mars might seek for patent infringement would be for the farmer to hand over title to their farm, with the trees, to Mars. And what, _be forced to work the farm for Mars to pay off their “debt”?_ That would be a form of indentured servitude (modern slavery?), and would be illegal, not to mention unethical. And that assumes the farmer has clear title to hand over. Agricultural land title is a complication on top of a complication that is not taken into account in Kilpatrick’s simplistic “explanation.” Keep all of that in mind as you read the following. * * * ### **_Before I continue_** 25th Anniversary Lifetime Membership offer ****I began my career**** as a professional chocolate critic, journalist, consultant, and educator in mid-May 2001. ****That means**** I am celebrating my 25th anniversary as a professional chocolate critic, journalist, consultant, and educator in 2026. To help me celebrate, I hope you will consider becoming a _****Lifetime****_ Member! ****This offer is**** _****only****_****available May 25 – June 30, 2026.**** Learn More About Lifetime Membership! _Your support makes it possible for me to do this work._ * * * ### **Responding to the Transcript of Part 4** > All right. If this last installment of this series on lab-grown cocoa doesn’t light your hair on fire, you're using PFAS flame retardant for hair product. 🤔 PFAS (****per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances)**** are __actually__ used in some haircare products to enhance texture and provide water and stain resistance; they provide more than just flame-retardant properties. This framing is purposefully inflammatory (pun intended), appealing to emotions rather than reason (a pattern that will be followed throughout this short). 🔄 ****MISDIRECTION:**** Note that Kilpatrick is no longer talking about lab-grown (in bioreactors) cocoa. He’s talking about gene-edited trees. These are not the same thing, but he is counting on his readers not to notice the switch. > When cacao genes edited by Mars Candy Company drift in pollen onto a neighboring cocoa farm in Ghana and fertilize a farmer’s trees ... 🔄 As I pointed out in _****my****_ Part 1, the vast majority of pollination is mediated by small insects (midges), _****not****_ by wind-borne pollen. **Nitpick:** It’s not Mars Candy Company. Founded in 1911, _Mars, Incorporated_ manufactures and sells confectionery (which may or may not include chocolate as an ingredient); snack foods; pet food, supplies, and veterinary services, and supplements (e.g., CocoaVia), among other items. They also conduct and invest in research that leads to the introduction of new products. > ... who owns the resulting seedlings? Well, the court says Mars does. 🔄 The law is clear; US patents are __de facto__ only enforceable in the US. However, there is some nuance to this fact in __some__ areas of IP law, and one of those areas _****is****_ agricultural patents. This is especially true if the stolen patented product (a tree? Would cocoa beans qualify?) makes its way back to the US. LegalFactCheck using my /FactCheck skillDownload to check the sources I rely on.LegalFactCheck.pdf103 KBdownload-circle > So, not only does a native cocoa farmer get control of his gene pool stolen from him, he could eventually lose ownership of his entire tree inventory. 🔄 “Could” is doing a whole lot of heavy lifting here. Is it plausible? Probable? This is important because a lot of the rest of the script is going to propose that the farmer being forced to hand over their farm and trees is an inevitable consequence ... ... but I, Layne Kilpatrick (who is not a lawyer, geneticist, or expert on cacao) have _****the****_ solution! > Any gene added Mars makes to cacao using licensed CRISPR technology becomes Mars intellectual property. 🔄 This is a tautology and so it’s trivially true. Under US law. > And Mars isn't alone. There are more than a thousand CRISPR patents right now at the US Patent Office that have agricultural application. 🔄 There isn’t a single authoritative, real‑time number for “how many CRISPR patents [there are] at the USPTO with agricultural applications,” and no primary source gives a precise current count. However, it is _****plausible****_ that ****hundreds to low thousands**** of U.S. patents and __published__ applications involve CRISPR and have some agricultural relevance (plants, traits, enabling tools for plant editing, etc.). > The Supreme Courts of both Canada and the US have ruled that ownership of the physical plant is no defense against a patent claim. The patent on the gene trumps the farmer's property rights to the plant on his own land that he owns. 🔄 For US patents __in the US and Canada__. However, the assertion that a US patent necessarily “trumps” a farmer’s property rights is not settled law when the claimed “infringement” happens in another country. > Now, apply that to West Africa. Côte d'Ivoire and Ghana have an estimated 2 million smallholder cocoa farmers. The average farmer earns less than $2.15 a day. Mars, on the other hand, is privately held with about $55 billion in annual sales. 🔄 This is true: The average farmer earns less than $2.15 a day. Mars, on the other hand, is privately held with about $55 billion in annual sales. 🔄 ****MISDIRECTION:**** In the above, Kilpatrick is setting up Mars as a heartless bully, playing into his audience’s distrust of globalism. But only Mars, not Tesla, SpaceX, or Amazon. Can’t stop trusting __them__ , can we? > Most cacao varieties can't successfully fertilize themselves. Some plants can. So, the pollination system that makes the chocolate industry possible is the same system that has no biological defense against engineered pollen from a neighbor's plantation. 🔄 ****MISDIRECTION:**** This is a misdirection in the guise of a false dichotomy, where only two options are presented, when many more options likely exist. Kilpatrick is relying on the fact that the average reader has zero knowledge of how cacao pollinates. ⁉️ The statement “... the pollination system that makes the chocolate industry possible is the same system that has no biological defense against engineered pollen from a neighbor's plantation,” is a tautology: ****No**** naturally evolved system of pollination has developed a biological defense against engineered pollen. Why should we expect cacao to be any different? One question I have for Kilpatrick is, ****“If what you say is true,****_****how did cacao trees pollinate, spread, and evolve in the wild****_ __****before human intervention****__ _****if most cacao varieties can’t successfully fertilize themselves?****_****”**** > If that's a gene-edited Mars plantation and they choose to sue for patent infringement, even if a Ghanaian farmer wins in court, the cost of fighting is more than he'll earn in his lifetime. 🔄 ****RED HERRING 1**** : Gene-edited Mars plantation? Where is the evidence for the assertion that Mars owns plantations with gene-edited trees in production? 🔄 ****RED HERRING 2:**** This further frames Mars as an evil big bully, plotting to take unfair advantage of low-income farmers f __or the purpose of taking their property__. Where is the evidence for that? > So, here's what I think the fix should be. If a company patents a gene edit, require it to be incapable of spreading by natural pollination. Build the fence into the seed or don't plant it. 🔄 ****RED HERRING: “**** Natural” pollination is another red herring. This sounds like a good idea to someone who knows nothing about how pollinating happens, but, Layne, explain what _****unnatural****_ pollination is. 🔄 ****MISDIRECTION:**** Planting from seed is only one way to propagate cacao trees. 🔄 What Kilptrick is likely referring to here is GURTs, or Gene Use Restriction Technologies. > Across eight years of development, I can't find a single published statement about how Mars plans to keep their genetic modification from spreading to the next generation of cacao seedlings everywhere. 🤔 Given how unreliable his understanding of cacao is in other areas, I am not giving Kilpatrick the benefit of the doubt here: I have no idea (and he does not tell us) how deep his research into this topic was. He __may__ be right. But just because he couldn’t find it does not mean it doesn’t exist. CRISPR GURT FactCheck – Check My Sources!Download to check the sources yourself.CRISPR GURT FactCheck.pdf93 KBdownload-circle > And God forbid something goes wrong. 👼 Why bring God into this? (It’s a rhetorical framing that will appeal to his audience, that’s why.) 🤫 And he has yet to actually substantiate any actual harm that might occur. He’s just appealing to his followers’ general distrust of science: GMO BAAAAAAAAAD. (drop mic) > The technology exists to contain it, but the Berkeley Mars team has not used any of it. 🔄 Gene Use Restriction Technologies do exist. Variety‑specific and trait‑specific GURTs have been explicitly developed to make second‑generation seeds ****non‑viable**** (V‑GURTs) or to restrict the function of a trait unless a chemical activator is applied (T‑GURTs). 🤔 How does (how can?) Kilpatrick _****know conclusively****_ that Mars has not been investigating GURTs? (just trust me bro) 😱 What are the implications of second-generation seeds being non-viable? __My brain hurts when I try to game out possible scenarios.__ * It is **true _in principle_** that it is possible to engineer traits to **_sharply reduce_** their ability to spread via pollen or seed, and CRISPR does make it easier to do so without transgenes. * However, the notion of an absolute “fence” that **prevents spread entirely** is **not supported** by current research. At best, it is possible to design **reduced-risk systems**(which are not mathematically zero‑risk systems), especially for a long‑lived, cross‑pollinating perennial like cacao. 🤔 The impenetrable fence that Kilpatrick proposes _****can****_ be engineered into cacao seed using CRISPR as “the solution” probably does not exist. __Yet.__ It may exist in the future, but it does exist today. No current literature describes a ****deployed, field‑tested, fully self‑containing CRISPR‑edited tree crop**** that guarantees zero risk of pollen‑mediated gene transfer. Furthermore. Many GURT‑style technologies have **never reached commercial deployment** , in part because: * There is an effective **de facto moratorium** on “terminator” seeds under the Convention on Biological Diversity. (Oakland Institute story.)​⁠ * Several countries (e.g., India, Brazil (a _major_ cocoa-producing country)) have passed laws explicitly **prohibiting** GURTs. > Look, a rancher can't let his bull get through the fence and breed the neighbor's herd. In every other industry, the owner of the hazardous thing pays the cost of keeping it contained. The polluter pays. 🔄 ****RED HERRING: The polluter pays? WT**** __actual__****F?**** The current US administration is doing everything it can to gut every government agency’s authority to hold polluters accountable, let alone assess fines and recover them. This assertion is facially fallacious. __In what universe does Kilpatrick operate in?__ 🔄 ****RED HERRING:**** The bull/herd analogy fails, too. It assumes the bull is an agent of the farmer’s intentional act (the farmer “lets” the bull). What if the bull broke down the fence at a weak spot the farmer was not aware of? There would be no intent, a key concept in legal codes that must be proved. Furthermore, this assumes the bull-owning farmer will make a property claim against the farmer whose cow was impregnated, claiming the offspring is his because his bull provided the pollen. I mean semen. Is that argument probable? Plausible? Legally defensible? Let me know in the comments. * * * ### In Conclusion: > Patented genetic should follow the same rule. If you own the gene, you own the fence. This needs clear regulatory language cuz it's going to keep coming up. **How** does Kilpatrick propose getting _every_ nation on earth to agree to “clear regulatory language”? Even if a widespread consensus were achieved, does he really think the current US administration would sign on to it if the billionaire donor class objected to it? * Remember: The current US administration withdrew from the Paris Agreement, the international treaty adopted in 2015 to combat climate change. As of January 2026, **194 (of 195 UN-recognized) countries** are parties to the agreement – _the US is the exception_. * If the US led on this gene-editing regulation effort, would anyone trust the US’s intentions? Or believe there was more than a transient, transactional commitment to the regulations? Or that it wouldn’t favor global corporations in consuming countries over the farmers and governments in producing countries? **It’s easy to propose solutions that are, for all practical purposes, unattainable for technical and/or political reasons.** > A multinational company patents something, lets it reproduce uncontrollably, and then sues the farmer it spreads to. Call that what you want, I call it legalized theft. **I call that argument a load of bollocks.**(That’s the technical term.) **_And so should you._** 🔄 Mars is __knowingly and deliberately__ “letting” “it” “reproduce” “uncontrollably” with the intent of suing the farmers who do not (cannot?) prevent it from happening. **_That’s not only _not_ legalized theft, it’s also a paranoid strawman. _** Kilpatrick is ranting against globalism using conspiracy theories cloaked in science denialism bathed in ignorance (his own and others’). Kilpatrick is counting on his followers' relative ignorance (knowing less than he does) and the fact that they will not do any _real_ research, confident in the belief that they _**could**_ do their own research (e.g., a Google search or using ChatGPT as if it were a search engine) if they _wanted_ to. 🤔 Kilpatrick does not supply a single shred of supporting evidence for any of his assertions in the transcript or in notes. Hitchens’ Razor – “ __that which is asserted without evidence can be dismissed without evidence__ ,” should be the default position. It’s not your (our) job to provide evidence to disprove assertions presented without evidence, _but that is**exactly what Kilpatrick asks every critical, skeptical watcher to do:****PROVE ME WRONG!**_ _**How did I do?** Did I provide enough counterfactual evidence to persuade you that I debunked Kilpatrick’s claims sufficiently?_ * * * ### **Future Episodes** 🗓️ Nothing scheduled at the time this was published. * * * ### **Episode Hashtags** #cocoa #cacao #cacau #chocolate #chocolat #craftchocolate #PodSaveChoc #PSC #LaVidaCocoa #TheChocolateLife * * * ### **#PodSaveChocolate and #TheChocolateLifeLIVE Archives** **To read an archived post** and find the links to watch archived episodes, click on one of the bookmark cards below. Pod Save Chocolate Calendar and ArchiveNews, views, and conversations on topics in cocoa and chocolate streamed live to YouTube, LinkedIn, and Facebook. #PodSaveChocolate!The Chocolate LifeClay Gordon#TheChocolateLifeLIVE ArchiveNews, views, and conversations on topics in cocoa and chocolate streamed live to YouTube, LinkedIn, and Facebook.The Chocolate LifeClay Gordon ⁉️ After a year-long+ experiment, the audio-only versions of PodSaveChocolate episodes have been taken down after an end-of-year review. There were not enough listens to continue uploading episodes and paying for hosting. * * *

🗓️ This stream begins at 10:00 ****MST**** (10:00 P****D**** T, 11:00 M****D**** T, 12:00 C****D**** T, 1:00 pm E****D**** T) on Friday, May 29th, 2026. Links below to watch LIVE and to view the archived episode. This ****YOUTUBE**** link is shareable. Watch and comment LIVE or view the archived episode! Subscribe (free!) to the @PodSaveChocolate YouTube channel, like this video, comment, and ****share**** this episode to help grow the #PSC community. Participate/Watch on YouTube This ****LINKEDIN**** link is shareable. Watch and comment LIVE or view the archived episode on LinkedIn. Join my network on LinkedIn to receive notifications and to refer business to each other. Participate/Watch on LinkedIn This ****FACEBOOK**** link is shareable Watch and comment LIVE or view the archived episode on ****TheChocolateLife page**** on Facebook (for 30 days, then watch the archive on YouTube). Follow TheChocolateLife on Facebook to receive notifications and catch up on other content. Participate/Watch on Facebook * * * ## **Episode 204 Overview** I have to admit that I spend a lot of time – perhaps more than is healthy for me – watching videos about coffee on YouTube. James Hoffman is my go-to, but I also find myself watching videos from Lance Hedrick, Morgan Eckroth, Emilee Bryant, Seattle Coffee Gear, and others. Among other things, these channels explore _the experience of making coffee_ using a wide range of gear, geeking out with varying levels of nerdiness about what makes a great-tasting cup of coffee, and how one can make great coffee at home. While there is a lot of discussion about coffee beans, roast levels, grind sizes, water, WDTs, and much more, one thing all of these channels take for granted, it seems to me, is the vast variety of equipment available to perform these steps. > That is something that the home chocolate maker does not enjoy – a selection of equipment equipment options of different types and prices that fit into a home kitchen. Coffee channels collectively spend hundreds, if not thousands, of hours dissecting the advantages and foibles of conical versus flat burr sets, and how those relate to motor RPM, static generation, and retention in a grinder, and how do these choices affect workflow. There are face-offs: which grinder in which price range offers the best performance? Do they all arrive at the same conclusions? Of course not. > I have to admit that I’m more than a little jealous of the myriad options and combinations available to coffee lovers, and the endless variety of upgrade paths this variety of options enables. FFS, there are thousands (millions?) of combinations of kettles, scales, wire distribution tools, filter papers, and tampers to choose from before you start to factor in manual pour-over (V60 anyone?) versus French press versus Moka pot versus Aeropress versus mechanical (e.g., Flair) versus pod machines (Nespresso vs Keurig et al), pour-over robots, siphons, drip machines, and semi-automatic and automatic espresso machines with or without profiling equipment. 25th Anniversary Lifetime Membership offer ****I began my career**** as a professional chocolate critic, journalist, consultant, and educator in mid-May 2001. ****That means**** I am celebrating my 25th anniversary as a professional chocolate critic, journalist, consultant, and educator in 2026. To help me celebrate, I hope you will consider becoming a _****Lifetime****_ Member! ****This offer is**** _****only****_****available May 25 – June 30, 2026.**** Learn More About Lifetime Membership! For each category of equipment, there are dozens if not hundreds of options in the budget/intro price range, that starting-out hobbyist price range, the “I have a lot of money to spend on my hobby” price, and everything in between > What’s missing from the above list? A similar variety of roasters in a range of prices – under $100, under $500, under $1000, etc. And that’s before we even begin any discussion of coffee bean origin and roast. There are literally thousands of roasters offering whole bean coffee from farms from all over the world in prices that range from under $10/lb to hundreds, if not thousands, of dollars per pound for rare lots of prized genetics and terroir. The home chocolate maker has nothing like this, 30 years after John Scharffen Berger and Robert Steinberg kicked off the bean-to-bar chocolate movement. > The lack of equipment options, ingredient suppliers, and video- and education-centric social media channels that focus on making chocolate at home means there are no sponsor revenues to support those creators. These lacks create a vicious circle: Anyone looking to produce comparable content has a lot more trouble trying to monetize their content, which means there is less of it. ### **The TL;DR Episode Summary Overview** In this episode of #PodSaveChocolate, I am going to take a deep dive into what makes chocolate so different from coffee and why micro (home kitchen)-scale equipment innovation lags decades behind coffee. * * * ### **Future Episodes** 🗓️ Friday, May 29th Who the Heck is Layne Kilpatrick? Part 2 of 2 * * * ### **Episode Hashtags** #cocoa #cacao #cacau #chocolate #chocolat #craftchocolate #PodSaveChoc #PSC #LaVidaCocoa #TheChocolateLife * * * ### **#PodSaveChocolate and #TheChocolateLifeLIVE Archives** **To read an archived post** and find the links to watch archived episodes, click on one of the bookmark cards below. Pod Save Chocolate Calendar and ArchiveNews, views, and conversations on topics in cocoa and chocolate streamed live to YouTube, LinkedIn, and Facebook. #PodSaveChocolate!The Chocolate LifeClay Gordon#TheChocolateLifeLIVE ArchiveNews, views, and conversations on topics in cocoa and chocolate streamed live to YouTube, LinkedIn, and Facebook.The Chocolate LifeClay Gordon ⁉️ After a year-long+ experiment, the audio-only versions of PodSaveChocolate episodes have been taken down after an end-of-year review. There were not enough listens to continue uploading episodes and paying for hosting. * * * ## Not a Member? Live The Chocolate Life – Live La Vida Cocoa! Sign up for ****Free**** to comment and receive members-only content. Subscribe Email sent! Check your inbox to complete your signup. No spam. Unsubscribe anytime. Premium subscriptions available.

🗓️ This stream begins at 10:00 ****MST**** (10:00 P****D**** T, 11:00 M****D**** T, 12:00 C****D**** T, 1:00 pm E****D**** T) on Friday, May 22nd, 2026. Links below to watch LIVE and to view the archived episode. This ****YOUTUBE**** link is shareable. Watch and comment LIVE or view the archived episode! Subscribe (free!) to the @PodSaveChocolate YouTube channel, like this video, comment, and ****share**** this episode to help grow the #PSC community. Participate/Watch on YouTube This ****LINKEDIN**** link is shareable. Watch and comment LIVE or view the archived episode on LinkedIn. Join my network on LinkedIn to receive notifications and to refer business to each other. Participate/Watch on LinkedIn This ****FACEBOOK**** link is shareable Watch and comment LIVE or view the archived episode on ****TheChocolateLife page**** on Facebook (for 30 days, then watch the archive on YouTube). Follow TheChocolateLife on Facebook to receive notifications and catch up on other content. Participate/Watch on Facebook * * * ## **Episode 203 Overview** Two Premium members of TheChocolateLife sent me links in the past 48 hours to videos posted by Layne Kilpatrick on Instagram and YouTube. **_Why Should Anyone Care?_** **Because, Kilpatrick has a massive, engaged social media reach, with over 1.1 million followers on Instagram alone.** In the first part of this four-part series, Kilpatrick warns about “Big Chocolate’s” efforts to replace tree-grown cocoa with lab-grown cocoa in chocolate. Lab-made Cocoa?Lab-grown “chocolate” is hitting shelves this year. Here’s what’s hype and what’s real.California Cultured grows cocoa cells in bioreactors and just signed a…YouTube This short has over 725,000 views on YT. This is pretty remarkable for an account with < 30,000 subscribers. This video has over 450,000 views on Facebook (from > 230 followers). Kilpatrick pivots, in part two, to teasing a warning about Mars and a lab at UC Berkeley using CRISPR to create disease and pest-resistant varieties of cacao trees. Lab-grown Cocoa Part 2This is the second of four in a series on lab-grown cocoa.The cocoa supply chain is in real trouble. Chocolate demand is rising about 3% a year. West Africa,…YouTube This short has over 150,000 views on YT. The IG reel version of the above YT short has over 88,000 views, more than 32,000 likes, and over 2,000 comments (some of which show a surprising degree of sophistication). But there are always trolls, and I don’t have the time (or patience) to evaluate over 2,000 comments systematically. In part three, Kilpatrick jumps the shark, asking right out of the gate, “What gave Mars the right to edit the genetics of every cocoa tree on Earth?” That statement reveals a complete lack of awareness (deliberate?) of Mars’ history in this area and does not consider what it would cost – and how long it would take – to “edit the genetics of every cocoa tree on Earth.” Lab-grown Cocoa Part 3 of 4Who gave Mars the right to edit the genetics of every cocoa tree on Earth?Because that’s the actual question. Cocoa cross-pollinates for 40 years. Smallholde…YouTube Another fundamental misrepresentation: a negligible amount of pollination in cacao is done by wind-borne pollen. * * * ### **So, Who the Heck is Layne Kilpatrick, anyway?** **The TL;DR:** Kilpatrick is a “struck off” pharmacist in California who had his pharmacist license and pharmacy permit revoked due to serious unprofessional conduct involving probation violations, drug diversion at a prison pharmacy, unlawful possession of controlled substances, self‑prescribing, and mishandling of patient records. > The **California Board of Pharmacy stipulation and order** in Case No. 2378. (Available as a PDF on the Board’s site.) The transcript of the questions I asked my trained (on me) LLM.More backgound on Layne KilpatrickWho is Layne Kilpatrick.pdf113 KBdownload-circle Kilpatrick’s website, HormoneSpecialist.net (I will _not_ link to it), **does not acknowledge the California disciplinary actions**. It instead presents a personal brand built on a tripod of: 1. A pharmacist (Kilpatrick does _not_ have a medical degree), educating about “hormone disruptors.” 2. Offering “clean” compounded hormone protocols and supplements (associated with operations in Idaho and Utah). 3. Criticizing “impure, mass‑produced drugs” and “Big Pharma.” (A conspiracy theorist?) I mention these things not to engage in an ad hominem attack on Kilpatrick or to poison the well before Kilpatrick can begin talking. > Rather, I point these things out so _you can make your own decision about how much you should/can/will trust Kilpatrick as a source_. I personally find that his not mentioning the circumstances of his license and permit in California being revoked is a caution flag. It does not automatically disqualify him, but I can not give what he says an automatic benefit of the doubt. Not trust but verify; verify before trusting. That sets up the rest of this post. * * * ### Fact-Checking Layne’s Shorts **Deconstructing the Playbook** I am – and by I, I mean we, dear reader, are faced with an all-too-common example of what is referred to as Brandolini’s Law: 📚 ****“The amount of energy needed to refute misinformation is significantly greater than the effort required to create and spread it.”**** This law highlights the challenge of debunking falsehoods, as they often spread rapidly and require extensive research and evidence to correct. Consider: ### **_Step 1:_** Start with some easily fact-checkable points to establish credibility to an audience primed to believe but willing to “do their own research” (which means either Googling or using ChatGPT like a search engine). **_Video Transcript of Part 1 (of 4)_** > Japan's biggest chocolate company just signed a 10-year deal to put lab grown cocoa in your food. And the label may not tell you. A California startup says they're growing cocoa in a tank instead of on a tree. And it's hitting the market this year. So, let's look at what's actually true about this and what's marketing hype. > > The company's called California Cultured. And in an environmental website article about him, it says that they take cocoa plant cells from from a cocoa bean, grow them in bioreactors, and then dry them into cocoa powder. > > They've got a 10-year supply deal with Meiji. That's Japan's biggest chocolate company. So, this is happening. So, let's do a hype check on four of their biggest claims. > **Hype check number one.** They're claiming FDA filing. All that means is they filed a self-affirmed, generally recognized as safe notice. The FDA's website does not list a response letter yet. So, there's been no FDA action on this product. So, don't be misled there. **Fact-check:** This is true, _as far as it goes_. BUT ... did you catch the final sentence? _Misled by what?_ This is language that appeals to emotion, not reason, implying that there is something nefarious about the GRAS process and what is on the GRAS lists. > **Hype check number two.** They claim 20 times the flavanols of regular cocoa. Flavanols are the healthy part of chocolate, but there's zero published primary data documenting this 20x number. No peer-reviewed paper, no third-party certificate of analysis, the gold standard. So, that number is pure marketing until they show their work. **Fact-check:** This is true. There appears to be no independent evaluation of the flavanol content claims made by California Cultured. > **Hype check number three.** The article spends a lot of time on traditional chocolates' environmental footprint, water usage, deforestation, emissions. Fair enough. But here's what's missing. California Cultured hasn't published a single specific water use number for their own bioreactor process. Not on their website, not in their blog, not in the any trade press. Every claim's qualitative like uses less water or more sustainable. That's a slogan, not a comparison. Bioreactors are not water free. They use water for the nutrient broth, for sterilization, for cleaning, for cooling. So, when a company tells you their process is more sustainable, but won't show you the math, that gives me pause. **Fact-check:** This is true. BUT ... why the focus on water rather than LCA (life-cycle assessment)? Water usage is just one small part of what contributes to a process or product being sustainable. > **Hype check number four.** Plant geneticist David Salt put it best in an interview. He said, "There isn't a molecule in cacao beans that's chocolate flavor. The overall chocolatiness is a bouquet of different compounds." A study identified 88 distinct flavor compounds that are generated by wild yeasts, lactic acid bacteria, and acetic acid bacteria. During the 4 to 7 days a traditional cocoa bean ferments, those microbes come from pod surface, insects, the worker's hands and utensils, even the wooden fermentation boxes themselves. And then roasting drives more reactions that give it that actual chocolate aroma. Cell culture in a sterile tank skips both steps. **Fact-check:** It is true that there isn’t a single chemical that signals chocolate flavor. BUT ... where does the chocolate flavor come from in a bioreactor? This is presented as a false dichotomy, saying, essentially, “wood is good, metal is bad”, overlooking the fact the cell culturing process could involve fermentation using natural yeasts and bacteria. > So, this isn't really a chocolate replacement. It's a flavanol rich cocoa derived powder. Different product. **Observation:** Okay, so it’s a different product. No one who knows the science of chocolate is saying that a flavanol-rich powder is a replacement for chocolate. It’s an ingredient in a “choc-alike” product. But we already have those – they’re colloquially called compound and have been around for a long time. > The chocolate you know and love is like a nuanced wine. By the way, what will the label say on these products? Will we know before we purchase if we're buying lab grown cocoa? Watch for this issue. I hate label manipulation. So, here's my take on this. There may be a place for this product in the food industry, but they need to call it what it is. I don't really know if this is if it really even qualifies ... **Observation:** The move from “nuanced wine” to labeling questions is a non-sequitur. One reason we’re having this discussion is that there is a debate about how “chocolate” made with ingredients not derived from tree-grown cocoa will be labeled. That debate has two parts: What goes on the front of the label and what goes on the back. As a colleague has pointed out, that will vary by jurisdiction. What the FDA decides will differ from what the EU, the UK, Japan, China, India, etc., decide. **Conclusion:** What Kilpatrick has done here is frame the next three parts of his screed (my term) with largely true and easily verifiable fact claims. That serves to establish his credibility when it comes to the claims he makes in the next installments, which rely heavily on opinion and loaded language from someone who lacks subject matter expertise in chocolate and cocoa. ### **_Step 2:_** Once you’ve got them hooked, pivot to a different target and start developing the basis for strawman arguments. **_Video Transcript of Part 2 (of 4)_** > I made a reel recently about California Cultured. They're the startup company that's growing cocoa cells in a tank. A lot of you asked, "Is this just one company?" No, it's the entire industry. But wait till you hear what the Mars candy company is doing that's far worse in my view. **Fact check:** It’s not the entire industry. The biggest manufacturers are investing in alt.cocoa and will offer products made with alt.cocoa to their customers, but they do not constitute the **_entire_** industry. **Observation: Here’s the pivot**. We’re going from cell culturing to what Kilpatrick is setting up as a strawman. > Here's what every major player in the chocolate industry is doing right now. Lindt is investing in lab grown cocoa. Mondelēz, the maker of Cadbury, Oreos, and Toblerone, is investing in lab grown cocoa butter. **Fact check:** Not every major player is _investing_ in lab-grown cocoa. Sure, most are exploring its uses, but that’s not the same thing as investing in tech companies. Also, cell-culturing is not the only (or even the most common) manufacturing approach: precision fermentation is. **Observation:** Having a nature-identical deodorized (without the use of hexane) cocoa butter for pharmaceutical and topical applications could be a good thing! > Barry Callebaut, the world's largest cocoa processor, is investing in cocoa cell culture. Barry Callebaut isn't a name you'd recognize on a wrapper, but they supply chocolate to Hershey and Nestle under long-term contracts. When they move, half the candy aisle moves with them. **Fact Check:** Callebaut makes ingredients that are found in about 25% of all products that contain chocolate - and not just candy. This is a broad generalization that sounds good, but can’t be justified with data. > But Mars, the makers of M&M's, Snickers, Dove, Twix, Milky Way, Mars bars, and Three Musketeers among others, is doing something completely different, and this has caused for alarm in my opinion. Now, let me give you some context around why this industry is doing this. > > The cocoa supply chain is in real trouble. Global chocolate demand's rising about 3% every year. At the same time, 70% of the world's cocoa comes from West Africa. And West Africa is getting hammered by droughts, higher temperatures, and a nasty virus. Pests and diseases cause yearly losses of about 30 to 40% of the total global cocoa production. That's a lot. **Fact Check:** The 30-40% loss number is widely used. > The question isn't whether there's a real problem. There is. The question is whether the solutions they've chosen are proportionate to the risk. This is where it gets interesting. Mars partnered with a lab at UC Berkeley where CRISPR, the gene editing technology, was developed. They're going to modify the cacao trees genetic structure by clipping out certain genes to make them more resistant to disease and drought tolerant. **Observation:** Another non-sequitur. Kilpatrick pivots from losses to whether the solutions are proportionate to the risk without mentioning what the risk is first. > Listen to what Brian Staskawicz said about the partnership. He's the lead Berkeley scientist on the Mars project. "We don't want to make the same mistakes as GMOs." He said there was a lot of public backlash and fear of Franken food. That's the scientist running the project, worried about his own work. **Fact Check:** Staskawicz is a prominent plant pathologist at UC Berkeley and has been involved in plant‑genome and disease‑resistance work. However, I can’t find any evidence to confirm the claim that he’s the lead Berkeley scientist on “the Mars project.” **Observation:** The**“** _any_ use of gene editing bad” framing leans hard into conspiracy theories and science denial. **Observation:** “We don't want to make the same mistakes as GMOs” is consistent with how many CRISPR crop researchers talk. As a verbatim quote, it can’t be verified. > I think it's interesting he thinks of this product as different from a GMO. If gene clipping isn't gene modification, then I'm a red number 40 M&M. I've got more to tell you on this, but I'm out of time. Next reel, I'll tell you exactly why gene editing a cacao tree is in a whole different category of risk than growing cocoa cells in a tank. **Observation:** “...he thinks of this product as different from a GMO**,** ” is likely true in spirit, but again, gene-editing advocates do differentiate CRISPR from classic (transgenic) GMOs. This framing is a live regulatory, philosophical, and scientific debate. Kilpatrick’s sarcasm is dismissive commentary. ### _**Step 3:** _ Lean into the strawman arguments, lacing them with an unhealthy dose of conspiracy theorizing to scare people: Big Food tech is out to fool you, and they think you’re too dumb to notice _THE TRUTH that Big Chocolate doesn’t want you to know about the evil plans to secretly turn every cocoa tree on the planet into a deadly GMO._ **_Video Transcript of Part 3 (of 4)_** > Who gave the Mars candy company the right to edit the genetics of every cocoa tree on earth? **Observation:** No one “gave Mars the right to edit the genetics of ever cocoa tree on the planet.” That is a deliberately hyperbolic misrepresentation of the facts (Mars _**never**_ asked for the “right” to do this) designed solely, in my opinion, to fear-monger. We should be asking _why_ we moved from cell culturing to talking about GMOs? > In the last reel I told you Mars is using CRISPR to gene edit cocoa trees. Gene editing of cocoa trees is a different risk category all together from growing cocoa cells in a tank. Cells in a tank stay in the tank. If something goes wrong, you just shut it down. The problem doesn't escape into nature. A gene edited tree is the opposite. **Fact Check:** No one is gene editing actual trees. Individual cells are edited using CRISPR, then cultured in a lab and, eventually, (using processes that include somatic embryogenesis), seedlings are planted to determine whether or not the desired characteristics (using tests that include SNP tests), can be heritable. CRISPR, combined with an understanding of the genome, can reduce the time conventional breeding takes by years or decades. > Cocoa is a cross-pollinating perennial that releases pollen year round for 25 to 40 years. Once a CRISPR edited cocoa tree flowers near other trees, edited pollen enters the regional gene pool through insect pollinators. Yes, industrial plantations control their own propagation through grafting and clones, but they don't control where pollen is carried or drifts on the wind. And in Ghana and Côte d'Ivoire, where roughly two-thirds of the world's cocoa is grown, small farmers routinely plant seedlings from seed pods from their own trees, carrying edits delivered by insects from neighboring trees. **Fact Check:** The rate of pollination in cocoa from wind-borne pollen is negligible, _effectively_ zero. The overwhelming majority of pollination is done by insects, as Kilpatrick says. BUT ... the “harm” suggested is theoretical and lacks a nuanced understanding of cacao propagation and hybridization in the wild that may be time-limited. > It's pretty concerning that you can't unwind it this on either pathway once it happens. Genetic change is slow on purpose. Natural selection filters harmful mutations because not many of those offspring live long enough to reproduce. An engineered edit skips that filter entirely. The moment a small farmer germinates seeds from a nearby tree, the edit goes straight into the next generation. Cocoa takes 5 to 10 years to mature and lives for decades. **Observation:** Natural selection filters _all_ mutations, not just harmful ones. > If the edit causes a subtle problem, it gets multiplied across farms for years before anyone notices. And by then, the genetics are already embedded across the region. **Observation:** Kilpatrick has, obviously, never been on a cocoa farm. That’s not the way things work in the real world: this is a hypothesis designed to strike fear in the hearts of people who know less than he does. > The question is, does anybody have the right to edit genes on all cocoa trees, including trees they don't own? Because that's what's going to happen. How do the affected countries respond? Well, Ghana exempts most CRISPR edits from regulation entirely. As long as a company just clips out sections of genetic material and doesn't add foreign DNA, there's no application, no risk assessment, no field trial requirement. **Fact Check:** No one has asked for “the right to edit genes on all cocoa trees, including trees they don't own?” SO ... that is not going to happen. > Ghana's own guidance says gene edits present no unique environmental concerns. Côte d'Ivoire grows 42% of the world's cocoa. They passed a biosafety law in 2016 with no functioning regulator to enforce it. So, in the two countries that produce most of the world's cocoa, the regulatory answer is either this is exempt or nobody's home. > > **The scariest part of the chocolate story isn't happening in a tank. It's happening in a field. By the time we figure out what we've done, it'll already be everywhere.** And there's another side to this that's going to set your hair on fire. Watch for part four, the last in the series. **Observation:** The math doesn’t work on several levels. Using FAO stats (from the FAOSTAT database), there were nearly 4,000,000 hectares of land planted in cocoa in Côte d’Ivoire in 2024. Assuming an average planting density (to make the math easy) of 1000 trees per hectare, that’s 4 BILLION trees. If each CRISPRd seedling costs just $1,00, the cost for _just the seedlings_ will be 4 billion dollars. That figure does not include any other costs, which could easily quadruple even before considering lost productivity. would take decades to implement, according to Mars’ own research. _Where does the money come from? Where does the labor come from?_ > But the problem is presented as an imminent existential threat: every cacao tree on the planet will be CRISPRd before you can blink. ### **_Step 4:_** Ramp up the rhetoric, pivot again, (and probably try to sell you something). **_Video Transcript of Part 4 (of 4)_** When it lands. * * * ### **Future Episodes** 🗓️ ****Tuesday May 26th**** __What Chocolate Can Learn From Coffee__ * * * ### **Episode Hashtags** #cocoa #cacao #cacau #chocolate #chocolat #craftchocolate #PodSaveChoc #PSC #LaVidaCocoa #TheChocolateLife * * * ### **#PodSaveChocolate and #TheChocolateLifeLIVE Archives** **To read an archived post** and find the links to watch archived episodes, click on one of the bookmark cards below. Pod Save Chocolate Calendar and ArchiveNews, views, and conversations on topics in cocoa and chocolate streamed live to YouTube, LinkedIn, and Facebook. #PodSaveChocolate!The Chocolate LifeClay Gordon#TheChocolateLifeLIVE ArchiveNews, views, and conversations on topics in cocoa and chocolate streamed live to YouTube, LinkedIn, and Facebook.The Chocolate LifeClay Gordon ⁉️ After a year-long+ experiment, the audio-only versions of PodSaveChocolate episodes have been taken down after an end-of-year review. There were not enough listens to continue uploading episodes and paying for hosting. * * * ## Not a Member? Live The Chocolate Life – Live La Vida Cocoa! Sign up for ****Free**** to comment and receive members-only content. Subscribe Email sent! Check your inbox to complete your signup. No spam. Unsubscribe anytime. Premium subscriptions available.