"Earth Cuisine" is a project lead by Japanese company Lifull that began as a initiative to curb the damage caused by food loss and waste by focusing on natural ingredients not normally used in popular dishes. The project's third effort has resulted in a chocolate titled "Ecolate"--a chocolate designed to relieve the plight of struggling cacao farmers and curb food loss.

Lifull's attention to chocolate this time around is based on the idea that production systems and environmental considerations when making chocolate have not been sufficiently taken into account, and in recent years the international market price of cacao has been stagnant, resulting in a serious financial stress for cacao farmers--which has only been exacerbated by the ongoing pandemic.

The project to counter this teams up two rising young chefs Hideki Eto and Shoji Kozuma, to make Ecolate, a sustainable food chocolate, by using the shells, branches, and leaves of cacao beans, which are usually discarded, instead of cacao mass and cocoa butter, which are commonly used in chocolate production.

In addition, the project wants to address a serious shortage of cacao due to environmental destruction caused by the expansion of production areas due to demand, climate change caused by global warming, aging cacao trees, and the threat of diseases that affect cacao trees.

Both can be ordered from Lifull's online store beginning on April 15th.