Britain chocolate greenhouse saves cocoa

 

London: A steamy greenhouse near London is helping to ensure that cocoa crops globally remain disease-free and bountiful to cope with the growing appetite for sweet treats.

 

On a winter morning, the temperature is a chilly eight degrees Celsius but inside the International Cocoa Quarantine Centre, which simulates tropical conditions, the air is a balmy 23 degrees.

 

“Cocoa plants are generally quite difficult plants to grow,” said Heather Lake, a technician at the newly-revamped centre, which is funded half by the British chocolate industry and half by the US government.

 

“They don’t like too much sunlight, they don’t like too much shade. It’s quite difficult to get the climate correct,” she said. Situated in the village of Arborfield, west of London, the ICQC boasts around 10,760 square feet of greenhouse space and 400 cocoa plant varieties.

 

The aim is to reduce the amount of disease affecting cocoa plants by quarantining them before sharing them with different countries to produce new, more resistant varieties. The plants are collected in the wild on expeditions to the tropics on which experts collect seeds from disease-free samples.