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Cargill has announced a strategic partnership with Kokomodo, an Israeli food-tech start-up specialising in cellular agriculture, to explore the commercial viability of cell-based functional cacao ingredients.

The collaboration is co-financed by EIT Food’s ‘ProofofConcept’ instrument, a funding mechanism specifically designed to help start-ups and corporate giants jointly validate and scale transformative agricultural technologies.

The partnership signals a growing urgency among multinational ingredient suppliers to secure alternative supply streams for cacao, an increasingly vulnerable crop heavily impacted by climate volatility and supply chain instability.

From Lab to Industrial Scale

Kokomodo’s proprietary cellular agriculture process aims to produce functional cacao ingredients that retain the natural flavour profile and bioactive properties of traditional cacao. Crucially, this method decouples production from geographic and climatic constraints, ensuring year-round availability.

The immediate focus of the Cargill partnership will be rigorous technical evaluation. The cell-based cacao will undergo testing for:

• Functionality

• Sensory Performance (taste, texture, and aroma)

• Industrial Scalability

The teams will explore how these lab-grown ingredients integrate across multiple high-volume categories, specifically targeting beverages, dairy, and confectionery applications. Results from this functional validation phase are expected over the coming months.

Mitigating Supply Chain Vulnerability

For a global agribusiness like Cargill, investing in cell-based alternatives addresses several macro-level challenges currently destabilising the traditional cocoa industry. These include:

• Inconsistent Yields: Driven by climate change and crop diseases in primary growing regions like West Africa.

• Environmental Pressures: Tightening regulations around deforestation, such as the EU Deforestation Regulation (EUDR).

• Labour Risks: Ongoing scrutiny regarding ethical sourcing and labour practices in the traditional supply chain.

By validating cell-based production, the partnership aims to pave the way for more stable, transparent, and environmentally low-impact supply chains.

Tal Govrin, CEO and co-founder of Kokomodo, highlighted the dual benefit of the technology—addressing both nutritional functionality and environmental sustainability.

“Our vision has always been to redefine cacao not only for its health benefits and functionality, but as a more sustainable, future-proof ingredient that can empower global food systems year-round,” Govrin stated.