Blue Stripes, a food company co-founded by Oded Brenner, is revolutionizing the chocolate industry by utilizing the entire cacao fruit—beans, pulp, and husks—to create a range of products. Traditionally, chocolate production focuses solely on cacao beans, leaving approximately 70% of the fruit unused and contributing to significant food waste.
By transforming typically discarded parts of the cacao pod into items like cacao water, dried fruit snacks, granola, and chocolate bars, Blue Stripes not only reduces waste but also provides additional income streams for cacao farmers in Ecuador. This approach supports local economies and promotes environmental sustainability by minimizing methane emissions from decomposing husks and reducing the need for deforestation to expand cacao farming.
Blue Stripes' initiative exemplifies how innovative thinking in food production can address environmental challenges and improve livelihoods, offering a model for sustainable practices in the chocolate industry.
Blue Stripes is Brenner’s return to cacao, now without the over-the-top decadence, and instead with a focus on addressing food waste. “I’m totally harnessed to the mission,” he told me. The company, which he co-founded with food-industry entrepreneur Aviv Schwietzer, is one of a growing number seeking to find culinary uses for the parts of the cacao plant that are typically discarded. Blue Stripes sells juice drinks and fruit snacks made of the fruit’s pulp, and whole-cacao trail mixes, granolas, and chocolate products, on Amazon and in premium grocery stores like Whole Foods and Sprouts.
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