Cacao-free chocolate and beanless coffee are no longer fringe experiments. With cocoa futures breaking $10,000/tonne and weather stress pushing Arabica off its traditional lands, substitutes are moving into mainstream pipelines. Corporate validation (Mondelez backing Celleste), scale-up partnerships (Voyage + Cargill), and footprint advantages (Atomo, Pluri) point to early adoption in blends, coatings, and foodservice channels before full consumer-facing rollout.

The five-year, NZ$10.4m programme will demonstrate how microbes can turn forestry pulp and other local side-streams into export-grade proteins and functional ingredients. Beyond the science, it creates the shared infrastructure and regulatory precedent that startups like Daisy Lab (animal-free dairy proteins) and OPO Bio (cell media and cultured tissues) have been waiting for. Together, these signals point to a potential billion-dollar export category anchored in precision fe