Wild Mango Could Help Tackle Global Chocolate Crisis

                Scientists may have found a solution to the global chocolate crisis caused by a cocoa shortage by using by wild mango as a new cocoa butter alternative. Researchers discovered wild mango butter can be used as an alternative to cocoa butter. Disease and crop failure made the price of cocoa butter more than double between 2005 and 2015, with prices set to rise by 30% by 2020. Cocoa butter is the pure butter extracted from cocoa beans and is one of the unique natural fats highly demanded by food, pharmaceuticals and cosmetic industries and in particular is a major ingredient in the chocolate industry.

                Cocoa butter is currently the only commercially available natural fat which is rich unsaturated and monounsaturated fatty acids. Moreover, the price of coca butter is one of the highest among all tropical fats and oils. The price of cocoa butter more than doubled between 2005 and 2015. The discovery could see mango butter – which is lower in fat – plucked from obscurity. Wild mango was a so-called “Cinderella” species – one which is visually appealing but currently overlooked – with its real potential still unrealized. The identification of value could pluck it from obscurity into mainstream production.

Coffee Could Be Extinct By 2080

                Coffee could become extinct if global warming continues on its current trajectory. By 2050, the amount of suitable coffee farmland is expected to have halved due to rising temperatures, pests and fungi. Wild coffee is expected to be wiped from the face of the planet by the year 2080. The disappearance of the coffee plant would have a profound impact on the 120 million people worldwide whose livelihoods depend on its beans. Coffee-drinkers are also expected to see flavor and aroma seriously impacted – alongside soaring prices for the ever-scarcer beans. Looking ahead, it is hard to see how consumer prices cannot be anything but badly affected by the projected long term decline in growing are and other impacts of a more hostile climate.

More and more extreme weather events in major coffee producing regions seem set to create supply shortages, and hotter conditions will impair flavor and aroma. Even instant coffee is likely to be hit hard in a world of 3°C or more. This research is not the first to warn about the bleak future of the coffee bean. According to a recent report by 80 scientists, coffee is at risk of running out by the end of the century, due to climate change and intensive farming. We have a cloud hovering over our head. It’s dramatically serious. Climate change can have a significant adverse effect in the short term. It’s no longer about the future, it’s the present.