附近上门

In my world, chocolate and coffee are two of the main substances that make life worth living. So it鈥檚 a big deal to see tighter supplies and higher prices for both commodities.

Chocolate lovers in particular felt sticker shock this year after a December surge in cocoa prompted confectionary makers to . Higher costs come as Ghana and C么te d鈥橧voire, the West African nations that provide most of the world’s cocoa supply, face yields due to crop disease and climate change.

Coffee addicts see a similar scenario unfolding. Prices are hitting on commodity markets, making it costlier to satiate morning caffeine cravings. to the price surge include rising global demand, poor harvests, tariffs and geopolitical tensions.

It鈥檚 a bleak picture overall. However, one bit of bright news is that startups are working on some potentially viable alternatives. These involve substitutes for the real thing as well as strategies to more reliably and sustainably source coffee and cocoa.

VCs pour in hundreds of millions

More than a dozen startups innovating in these areas have raised funding in the past couple years, collectively pulling in over $300 million to date, per 附近上门 data. A big chunk of that聽 has come in the past year, as growing shortages and pricing pressures have escalated.

Coffee is the biggest area for funding. To illustrate, we used 附近上门 to put together a list of 11 companies working on coffee substitutes or sustainability-focused businesses.

Cocoa isn鈥檛 too far behind. Two companies on our coffee list 鈥� and 鈥� also have chocolate offerings. In addition, a handful of other companies are focused more closely on chocolate alternatives:

Big fundraisers feeding our addictions

Most investment to the alternative coffee and cocoa space has gone to two companies: Voyage Foods and .

Oakland-based Voyage Foods, which has a lineup of plant-based foods that includes cocoa-free chocolate and bean-free coffee, is the more heavily funded of the two. The 4-year-old company has raised $117 million to date, locking up a $52 million Series C last May.

Voyage鈥檚 focus is on creating allergen-free, more sustainably produced versions of popular food and drinks, like coffee, chocolate and peanut butter. Its process involves studying foods at the microscopic level to identify what compounds produce the flavors we love, and then recreating them with different, more widely accessible ingredients.

Munich-based Planet A Foods is another strong fundraiser, pulling in $73 million to date, including a $30 million December Series B. The company is best known for a cocoa-free chocolate called ChoViva, produced with sunflower seeds and vegetable oils.

Others have also raised good-sized rounds, including Zurich-based , a maker of cell culture-based cocoa and coffee, which has raised $11 million.

Another one to watch is , based in caffeine-loving Seattle, which makes a beanless coffee with ingredients including date seeds, sunflower, guava and lemon. And for those looking for actual coffee, Colombia-based sells sustainably grown beans that it says are 鈥渢raceable from farm-to-cup.鈥�

These are huge markets

In case anyone was wondering, people spend tons of money on coffee and chocolate.

In the U.S. alone, consumers spend more than $300 million on coffee products every day, which adds up to nearly $110 billion annually, the . Each week, more than 70% of American adults drink coffee, making it the country鈥檚 favorite beverage after bottled water.

Chocolate confectionary, meanwhile, represents a roughly $140 billion , with plenty of growth ahead. In the U.S., for instance, confectionary sales broke records last year, with more than half of that going to chocolate treats.

These are huge markets for startups to potentially tap. For those working on alternatives, it helps that some of that spending is discretionary, with consumers willing to substitute something else if their morning coffee or chocolatey dessert is too expensive or unavailable.

But among us hardcore coffee and chocolate lovers, few plan to voluntarily give up our favorite indulgences. If we are going to try an alternative, it better be pretty darn close to the real thing.

Related 附近上门 Pro lists:

Illustration: