Exclusive: Plant-based chocolate: delivering a real alternative

The past couple of years has seen an explosion in the plant-based movement – including the development of chocolate offerings. Confectionery Production board member and industry consultant, Graham Godfrey, offers his view on potential for the segment

Environmental and dietary concerns are driving a plant-based change in the chocolate industry. While dairy-free alternatives to milk chocolate such as rice milk chocolate and oat milk chocolate are becoming widely available, they are still held back as manufacturers continue to have difficulties in replicating the depth of flavour and texture of real dairy milk chocolate.  Plant based “milk” chocolates should be chosen by the consumer because they have a preferred flavour, not because of environmental claims.

A small Spanish company, Tiger & Bean, has solved the flavour and texture issues by developing a range of plant-based, powders with unique high-Maillard type flavour profiles that can be used as an ingredient in the production of plant-based milk chocolate to improve the overall flavour of this emerging category without the need for artificial ingredients.

This is made possible through a novel process (patent pending – WO2022/162184 A1) that involves the enzymatic treatment, roasting and dehydration of plant-based milks and cocoa solids under vacuum to enhance flavour development through controlled Maillard type reactions between free amino acids and reducing sugars native to the plant–based milks.

With 20% of Europeans now following a flexitarian diet, improvements made to the flavour and quality of plant-based milk chocolate are likely to encourage a greater, preference lead shift away from traditional dairy milk chocolate towards the more sustainable plant-based alternative thereby helping to reduce the overall carbon footprint of the chocolate industry.

It is notable that several countries formerly focussed on dairy production are now considering ways to reduce bovine stock levels and consequently dairy output to reduce methane emissions.  Whilst the confectionery industry is not a major milk consumer (in the EU around 3%) in the overall sense it can use these shifts to its advantage

Because the drying process developed is extremely flexible in terms of the degree of flavour and colour development produced it is possible to produce products with flavour and colour characteristics “tuned” to a manufacturer’s requirements.

Whilst most of the initial research was based on the use of Tiger Nut ( a small legume commonly grown in parts of Spain but also more widely) as a raw material, subsequent work has used a variety of other plant based ingredients including rice and oats.  Interestingly each of the different raw materials lends a very mild but characteristic flavour note to the product which is sufficient to differentiate it from milk based products whilst not polarising the flavour

Most of the current plant based alternatives to dairy ingredients have fundamental problems within the context of replicating the familiar and desired flavours and textures present in dairy based products.

In dry form – the way in which most are added to dark chocolate to produce milk chocolate  substitutes – they lack the process conditions, reactive protein sites and reducing sugars necessary for the Maillard and similar flavour development reactions. Therefore they cannot develop the flavours familiar in confectionery based on milk during the manufacturing process

Even in aqueous suspension from initial stage manufacture they still lack the necessary chemistry and in any case cannot be added directly to chocolate.

Consequently, in spite of many good intentions, the current plant based alternatives do not represent a real alternative to conventional products in terms of flavour and in many cases texture. In addition most are premium priced, so the consumer receives poor value in addition to products which are not to the quality generally expected.  The market failure of many recently introduced plant based products illustrates that the majority of consumers expect plant based products to provide the same degree of satisfaction and value as conventional products.

Even the niche artisan products in this category must consider the frequency of repeat purchase or consumers actively seeking the product for its characteristics rather than seeing it as a novelty.  The key to success in the confectionery industry is convincing customers to buy products consistently, not once or twice “to try”.  A lot of (particularly young) consumers are very interested in plant based alternatives, but they are also driven by satisfaction and most won’t buy products that are less than satisfactory for purely assertive reasons.  In the current economic climate consumers are also going to become focussed on value and will be quick to abandon products they do not find satisfactory.

The next stages of development for the Spanish company, lead by its founder Robert Brunt, include the launch of a premium (Tiger Nut based) product in the Spanish market and finding larger scale manufacturing partners to move the product into the mainstream confectionery market.

The key objective behind the project, which has taken five years to develop, has always been to manufacture a product which has the organoleptic qualities of a conventional milk chocolate but using entirely natural, plant based ingredients, thus offering all consumers a genuine choice.