Do you remember your favorite candy bar as a kid? The one you used your first allowance to buy, or tucked in the freezer for a late-night snack, suddenly disappears. It doesn't vanish because of diet, any health scare, but because of a simple fact: The world ran out of cocoa.
This scenario isn't too far-fetched. Over the past several years, the unassuming cacao tree has been slowly losing ground due to droughts, disease, and aging crops.
Now, one of the world's biggest chocolate makers, Mars, is placing its bets on gene-editing to keep chocolate from going the way of the dodo bird.
A Supply Chain on Life Support
Nearly 70% of the world's cocoa is produced in West Africa. The fields in Ghana and the Ivory Coast have been vulnerable to erratic weather and pests. A combination of drought and swollen shoot disease in 2024 drove yields down so sharply that it caused the cost of cocoa to soar to record highs, nearly reaching $12,000 per ton, almost triple the cost of raw cocoa in a single year, levels not seen in modern history.
Two other major chocolate manufacturers, Hershey and Lindt, responded by scaling back production and raising prices. Hershey shifted its focus to peanut butter and wafer candies, and Lindt openly admitted that prices reaching sky-high levels risked driving consumers away.
It wasn't just financial damage; it threatened the very symbol we hold as comfort food.
Imagine filling your child's Easter basket with something other than chocolate eggs, or using substitutes to fill Halloween buckets.
As devastating as the economic loss would be, the cultural loss would be equal.
Mars Turns to CRISPR
Manufacturing isn't waiting for nature to solve the problem that humans created. Mars licensed Pairwise's Fulcrum gene-editing platform, including its SHARC enzyme, which enables scientists to precisely modify cocoa plants. Instead of waiting for traditional crossbreeding, which may take decades, CRISPR targets specific traits, such as disease resistance, drought tolerance, or higher yields, in a fraction of the time.
The choice was an obvious one for Mars, because without any leap forward in crop science, we'd see the supply of cocoa shrink, creating soaring prices, and leaving the future of chocolate hanging by a thread.
CRISPR isn't about making futuristic chocolate; it's about making sure there's a future with chocolate in it.
Transparency or Trouble?
Show me a world where gene-editing isn't controversial, and Mars knows that skepticism all too well. Europeans are leery of genetically modified or edited food. Unless, of course, it's ground-up insects to use as flour. Mars must convince farmers, regulators, and everyday consumers that CRISPR cocoa isn't simply a food made by Dr. Frankenstein.
Pledging transparency, Mars insists that any cocoa trees edited with CRISPR undergo safety checks that are identical to those of any other crop. But that promise doesn't eliminate tension; Europe's political climate has become increasingly protectionist. Farmers have grown suspicious of big-business science. Consumers demand "all-natural" ingredients and may balk at the idea that their favorite chocolate bar owes its survival to something out of a lab.
Chocolate as Culture
It's not just sugar and profit at stake. Chocolate is woven into culture, sweetening weddings and birthdays, comforting the brokenhearted, and connecting children to grandparents, soldiers to home, and strangers through shared experiences.
During wartime, rations often included chocolate. In peace, it rewarded long days.
It wouldn't be an abstract loss if cocoa yields collapse; it would be the end of something inherently human. Although Mars is a global corporation, it plays an unlikely role as a cultural preservationist in this battle. Its scientists are performing yeoman's work, so when we reach for sweetness, it's still chocolate.
Final Thoughts
This leap in gene-editing by Mars isn't about flash, innovation, or buzzwords out of Silicon Valley; it's a strategy based on survival. If this technique isn't attempted, the chocolate industry may collapse for several reasons. In a world where chocolate is priced out of reach or vanishes, Mars's use of CRISPR is more than just science; it's a quiet defense of joy, memory, and everyday tradition.
If science keeps an M&M melting in your mouth but not your hand, then we're left with a couple of questions.
Will this lab work be justified?
Is chocolate worth it?
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