Cocoa Power -- Food from the Edge
by Rebecca Rothbaum, Posted Jun 22nd 2010 @ 12:00PM
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Photo: wildxplorer, FlickrThanks to its high antioxidant content, chocolate has in recent years undergone a rehabilitation that has transformed it from sinful snack to super food. Now, chocolate boosters can also point to the treat's environmental bona fides: this month, Lindt USA embarked on a novel partnership with a public utility that will use cocoa bean shells to produce electricity. Last week, the famed Swiss chocolate maker's U.S. arm opened its first cocoa liquor plant in Stratham, N.H. The plant will turn out truffles, bars and about 300 other products from scratch, starting by shelling, roasting and grinding cocoa beans to make the paste or "liquor" that is the basis of the candies.
Previously, Lindt used enormous blocks of pure chocolate shipped from Europe. But as the company increased North American production – the region is currently Lindt's biggest market − that approach had become less and less economically and environmentally sound, according to Thomas Linemayr, chief executive officer and president of Lindt USA. Faced with the waste created by producing up to 110,000 pounds of chocolate a day – thousands of tons of spent cocoa beans – Lindt USA struck upon a novel, and green, idea: why not burn the woody cocoa bean husks as fuel?
"Chocolate is a very clean product but you have the shells," Linemayr said. "From an environmental standpoint, this just made sense."
Lindt USA teamed up with Public Service of New Hampshire, the state's largest electric utility, which began test burns in March 2009 at its Schiller Power Station in nearby Portsmouth. (The state's Department of Environmental Services gave the project the green light earlier this year.) For PSNH, the cocoa beans were a way to reduce carbon emissions, said spokesman Matthew Chagnon.
Like other biomass, such as wood chips, cocoa beans are considered a carbon-neutral source of energy. (Burning them releases only as much carbon dioxide as they absorb during their lifespan.) It's a small step – PSNH currently uses a mix of coal and cocoa beans at a ratio of 30:1 – but every ton of cocoa shells used to generate electricity will mean a half-ton less coal burned.
To paraphrase Homer Simpson, what can't chocolate do?
Read more: http://www.slashfood.com/2010/06/22/cocoa-power-nibbling-around-the-edges/#ixzz149OQzA4S
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