Creating concentrated extracts to enrich cacao products: identifying breeding targets for ordinary bulk cocoa

The benefits of cocoa to human health are supported by a number of research studies. Seeds in general are the sites of polyphenol storage for the next generation. A great health benefit of cocoa is its polyphenols, but often select polyphenols are not well retained in cocoa processing or not bioavailable in digestion. Manufacturing complex mixtures is typically challenging, however plants do this naturally in often subtle responses to environmental stimuli. As mixtures of polyphenols have shown promising success in treatments to prevent inflammation, the precursor to all chronic neurodegenerations (i.e. Alzheimer’s), chronic pain, and cancer, it would be useful to direct breeding goals for some bulk cocoa production to maximize desirable polyphenols. The key is altering the right targets to attain “high yield-high polyphenol” outcome. Traditional cocoa breeding can take over a decade; markers with desired clone can reduce this time substantially by years. A major goal of our lab is to 1) produce polyphenols with increased bioavailability, 2) reduce interference with digestion, and 3) understand and promote desired metabolic modification in vivo. Proprietary growth methods developed in the Warpeha lab directs metabolic reactions to reduce interfering chemicals, and increase desirable polyphenol content, reactivity and stability, with fewer structural compounds that can impede some aspects of digestion. Multidisciplinary collaborative research in stress physiology, targeted breeding, and plant chemistry can successfully manipulate the incredibly diverse chemical arsenal of plant response / defense compounds to develop a promising chemical output to broaden the yield and uses of bulk cocoa.