A new facility has opened in the UK to keep chocolate under quarantine. It is a clearing house for all the new cocoa varieties in the world which must be quarantined before they can be grown.
The International Cocoa Quarantine Centre in Reading is the place where all new cocoa seeds and plants are lodged in order to ensure the supply of cocoa is reliably clean and healthy and free from pests and disease.
While it has operated since 1985, after taking over from Kew botanical gardens, a new £1m purpose-built facility has been spurred on by the world’s ever increasing demand for chocolate which is outstripping supply. As it is, an estimated 30% of supply is lost every year to predators.
New varieties could ease the situation. The new centre holds the plants in tropical conditions but the cooler British climate should help prevent the sort of disease that hit in the cocoa’s native origin.
After up to two years in quarantine, clean and safe cocoa seeds are shipped to some 20 countries, including several in West Africa where 75% of the world’s cocoa for chocolate is produced. The crop is crucial to the regional economy and employs two million people.
According to the project’s leader Prof Paul Hadley much effort is going into averting a chocolate crisis.
"Most cocoa is produced by subsistence farmers, who might be farming one or two hectares. As well as needing new, more efficient varieties, they also need to improve the way they grow the cocoa.”
The intention is to draw these two things together to help farmers improve yield. The Reading facility is being looked to for new genetic material which will be critical for the global network.
