Cacao is native to the Amazon but grown all over the world. Consumers interact with it as chocolate. Most commonly grown in West Africa, the high fat cacao seed is harvested from the fruit, dried, roasted, and ground down with sugar. Botanist Brad Kintzer has been working with cacao for more than two decades. As the chief chocolate maker for Berkeley-based company TCHO, he has spent years developing sustainable ways to produce chocolate. Most recently, that includes a complete pivot to plant-based milk chocolate.
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As chief chocolate maker of TCHO, Brad Kintzer is engineering plant-based chocolate that is mindful of the environment and the farmers who are cultivating the cacao. Photo courtesy of TCHO.