Mars & Pairwise Focus on Cocoa Resilience
- Mars collaborates with Pairwise to create climate-resilient cocoa.
- Climate change threatens global cocoa supply chains.
- Cocoa prices surged to a historic $10.75/kg in January 2025.
- Market volatility persists, with analysts predicting ongoing uncertainty.
In an effort to enhance sustainability within the food and beverage industry, Mars Inc has partnered with biotechnology company Pairwise to engineer more resilient cocoa utilizing CRISPR technology.
What is CRISPR?
CRISPR (Clustered Regularly Interspaced Short Palindromic Repeats) is a revolutionary gene-editing technology that enables precise modifications of DNA sequences in living organisms.
This agreement grants Mars access to Pairwise’s Fulcrum platform, which houses an expansive library of plant traits. Hence, Mars can engineer its crops to be more robust and sustainable, aligning with current food manufacturing trends.
“Building on plant breeding practices that have existed for centuries, new gene editing techniques, such as CRISPR, offer exciting potential to accelerate progress in the area of agricultural and plant resilience,” stated a Mars spokesperson.
The objective is to cultivate cacao plants, the source of cacao beans used in chocolate production, that can better endure diseases, heat, and other climate-related stresses.
Addressing the Cocoa Crisis
The world faces a cocoa crisis, as climate change poses significant threats to global supply networks.
In January 2025, cocoa prices reached an unprecedented high of $10.75 per kilogram, largely due to unfavorable growing conditions in West Africa, a key growing region.
Additionally, strong seasonal demand during the 2024 holiday season exacerbated the situation, resulting in a global cocoa deficit.
Although prices have begun to stabilize with steady declines, the risk of extreme weather affecting future crops remains. Thus, prompt action from the industry is crucial.
“The cocoa market heads into Q3 and Q4 delicately balanced, with volatility likely to persist,” commented Ben Schräder, market analyst at Vesper.
Despite these challenges, Mars is optimistic that gene editing can serve as a viable solution.
“We believe CRISPR has the potential to improve crops in ways that support and strengthen global supply chains,” said Carl Jones, plant sciences director at Mars. “Our focus is to transparently and responsibly conduct CRISPR research in plant science that helps crops better adapt to climate challenges, disease pressures, and resource constraints.”
