Per WSJ, the cup of coffee is a social and environmental disaster. However, synthetic coffee is poised to come to your dining table.
Worldwide, people drink 2 billion cups of coffee daily. Since the average Arabica tree produces only 1-2 pounds of coffee annually, every two-cup-a-day drinker needs continuous production from ~20 coffee trees.
High coffee demand has driven deforestation, low wages for farmers who see little of rising coffee prices, and major carbon emissions from production/long supply chains. Research indicates around half of land best suited to growing coffee will become unsuitable by 2050 due to climate change. In Brazil, that figure reaches 80%.
As a result, companies are using biotechnology/food science to replace real coffee with synthetic coffee, which bypasses coffee’s problems and isn’t nearly as vulnerable to climate change. Alternative coffee can be made from a variety of ingredients, including chickpeas and agricultural waste like date pits. Companies like Voyage Foods, Minus Coffee, Atomo, Prefer, Stem and Northern Wonder have begun selling or are working on bean-less coffee alternatives.
For example, Atomo coffee is made from a handful of fermented/roasted ingredients, including ramon seeds which have been used in South American beverages for centuries. The main ingredient is date seeds – a waste product left over after a date is mechanically pitted.
Cargill, one of the world’s largest food companies, noticed this trend and recently signed a deal to become the exclusive business-to-business distributor of beanless coffee maker Voyage Foods’ cocoa- and nut-free products.
If these companies are successful, it will be a classic case of the substitution effect. As traditional coffee becomes harder to find and more costly, consumers will switch to cheaper/more readily available alternative brews. And coffee may be just the beginning, Voyage Foods already sells a nut-free, cocoa-free Nutella alternative at Walmart. The company says it is comparable in price to real Nutella, and is also the lowest cost allergen-free spread available at that big box chain.
In the late 19th century, butter shortages caused chemists to look for alternative sources of fats. Margarine, shortening and a variety of hydrogenated fats resulted from that effort. Shortages and higher prices of coffee in the 21st century could cause the same result.
The world is changing. Even coffee isn’t sacrosanct anymore. From climate change to supply chains, just-in-time to real-time, and automation to innovation, businesses are struggling to quantify the impact of these changes and assess their risk exposure. MOSIMTEC helps companies explore every option by guiding them along the simulation modeling and digital twin continuum, so businesses aren’t just ready for change, they embrace it. MOSIMTEC data scientists/industrial engineers can help you futureproof your business.
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Read More: https://www.wsj.com/arts-culture/food-cooking/ynthetic-coffee-chocolate-climate-change-bfa9cce3