How much chocolate does one tree produce?
Does chocolate grow on trees? Not quite, but the trees produce the seeds we use to make chocolate. So, how much chocolate can one tree produce in a year?
Keep in mind this is a very general idea here There are many varieties of cacao. Some varieties produce cocoa pods with 60+ seeds per pod, and some grow smaller pods with around 20 seeds per pod. As well, it will depend on the percentage of cacao used in a bar (such as a 70% dark bar, 100% dark bar, or 30% milk bar). This explanting here will offer you a very rough idea.
One cacao tree can produce about 40 cocoa pods a year, which can equal up to 2 kilograms or nearly 9 lbs of cocoa beans.
Cacao beans being crushed, with the nibs (kernel) mixed together with the husk (shell or “testa”) of the cocoa bean. The husk needs to be separated from the nib, before the nibs can be crushed and made into chocolate. Image by Bean To Bar World.
When making chocolate, the thin paper-like shell or “husk” is removed from around the cocoa bean. This process is called winnowing. After winnowing, 30% (give or take) of the total cocoa bean weight is lost.
Many of the “standard” dark chocolate bars, especially in the fine chocolate world, tend to be around 70% dark chocolate. This means the recipe includes a ratio of 70% cocoa beans and 30% sugar.
Therefore, although about 30% of the whole cocoa bean weight is lost after winnowing, that lost weight is made up from the added sugar.
Image by Bean To Bar World
Therefore, if each tree produces on average about 2 kilos of cocoa beans, and the lost weight is replaced by sugar when making chocolate, then it roughly works out to produce the same amount (in weight) of dark chocolate.
Therefore, each tree produces roughly 2 kilos or 9 lbs of 70% dark chocolate per year. A lower percentage dark chocolate would mean less cocoa bean per bar, and so that would create somewhat more chocolate per tree.
For milk chocolate, the average cocoa content percentage for commercial milk chocolate is about 30%. So if a tree was used to only make milk chocolate, it would produce more than double the amount, of around 4-5 kilos or around 20 lbs of chocolate per year.
So, the big question now is, how many trees are required to feed your chocolate consumption?