Current chocolate production is plagued by child labor and slavery. Children across West Africa are taken from their families and sold to cocoa plantations without hope of a better future. Furthermore, the industry is powered by farmers living below the poverty line, many making less than $1 a day according to the World Economic Forum. Cocoa farming in the Ivory Coast is particularly devastating, with the industry being responsible for more than 70% of illegal deforestation in the country. Climate change has led to even more suffering. Thanks to increased droughts and floods, as well as an extremely contagious virus affecting the cocoa plant, yields are dropping at an alarming rate. This, combined with more demand for chocolate than ever before, has led to what many have called a “cocoa crisis”.

How Our Project Helps

Lactochoccus will create an alternative, which will help alleviate some of the demand for cocoa for chocolate production. Our project paves the way for a more sustainable, ethical future for the cocoa industry. Specifically, our project aims to reduce the amount of water and land usage in current chocolate production. In one of our focus groups, one of our participants brought up land and water use. Our project comprises a chocolate flavoring that uses less land and water compared to traditional cocoa-produced chocolate, which requires an astonishing 27,000 liters per kilogram of cocoa beans produced Künzle & Nieth, 2020

How our project could hurt

Much of cocoa production is done by independent farmers on small plots according to barry callebaut.com. According to the sustainable trade initiative in the Ivory Coast, cocoa production makes up 15% of the country's gross domestic product (GDP). Much of cocoa production is done by independent farmers on small plots who rely on this farming for their livelihood and income. Our project is attempting to develop an alternative to cocoa-derived chocolate. This inherently would take away from the incomes of these independent farmers. If people buy chocolate without cocoa, these smaller farmers would not have anyone to sell their cocoa to put them out of work. We also currently do not know the effect that our product would have on human health.

Engaging the Community

During our initial meetings, we were thinking of how to engage with stakeholders and especially to see how people would be affected by our project. We realized that the best way to get people's initial opinions was with a survey. Before starting to make the survey we reviewed iGEM’s guidelines. We ensured that our informed consent sheet aligned with the guidelines and that our survey and focus group outreach indicated that participation was completely voluntary. We described the data that was being collected and why it was being used. We considered how response options can affect results. so we changed the survey to not include written responses, we also changed some questions to be on a Likert scale instead of multiple choice, to allow more freedom when choosing an answer. We also considered how the question was worded would affect the response.

The idea is that how ideas are presented can change how someone views them. In considering this we not only changed the wording of our initial survey to be more neutral we also decided to make a second survey with identical questions but more negative wording to test the framing effect in full. We hypothesized that people who were presented with information about the unethicality of current chocolate production before taking the survey would be more likely to buy synthetic chocolate if they knew it was more sustainably sourced. We also believed that people's concerns would be much more environmental and ethical.

We wanted to get survey responses from a diverse array of people affected by our project (essentially anybody, since most people consume chocolate), To do this, we not only shared links on the Baltimore Underground Science Space (BUGSS) Instagram email list but also shared with a team member's aunt who is an entrepreneur influencer with 6000 followers who had no previous connection to IGEM. We also utilized a team member's mother who worked with a network of college students and others with social networks. This resulted in a diversity of survey responses and potential focus group participants.

From the beginning, we also ensured that our survey would be concise and not take up too much of anyone's time. The main purpose was to use the survey to help guide what final product we would produce. We also wanted to use the survey to see what people already knew about cocoa production and what people could benefit from education. The next step for us was creating a focus group to further see what topics needed to be educated on while gaining more insights into specific concerns about what people would want out of chocolate products to guide our creation.

Analyzing data

After obtaining at least 40 completed surveys for each version, we summarized the results in graphs. We found the most pressing concerns people had about chocolate production were centered around the environment, sustainability, and ethics.

We also found through the survey that people did not want the product to be a chocolate scent.. We also realized people would not be eager to buy dog-friendly chocolate. We found that people would be mostly interested in a chocolate bar. This is why in the end we decided to go with a chocolate flavoring that can possibly be used in chocolate products.

Version 1

Version 2

To determine if the survey version (containing different introductions) affected survey responses, we ran statistical tests known as chi-squares. A chi-square is a test that can demonstrate if one variable is actually affected by another. This is done by taking the summation of the observed value minus the expected value over the expected value. You then calculate your degrees of freedom (which is the number of cases minus 1) and then if the number is less than the number based on the degrees of freedom it proves the null hypothesis. The null hypothesis states that there is no relationship between two variables. Null hypothesis 1 is the survey version did not affect whether ‘ethicality’ was chosen as a concern. Ethicality means acting according to moral standards or what you feel is right. Null hypothesis 2 is the survey version did not affect whether respondents were likely to purchase a synthetic chocolate product.

Our statistical analysis is shown in the calculations section. The analysis indicated that people who completed versions 1 and 2 of the survey had statistically different results for both selecting ethicality and the likelihood as to purchase a synthetic chocolate product. These results are unexpected based on chance due to the calculated chi-square being more than the number associated with the assumed error and degrees of freedom. This means that the paragraph at the top did affect people's answers and the results did not occur due to chance. We also found the population of people who choose organic to be interesting. They were more likely to want to buy the synthetic chocolate given it was more sustainably or ethically produced.

Who took the survey

Our first survey featured a majority of people from the United States with a few international responses from countries such as Canada and France. We had a majority of people ranging from ages 35-55 at 42.3%. With the second largest number of responses coming from individuals aged above 55. The most common level of education was graduate school at 46.5% with then an even split between those who had at least a college and high school education at around 25% each. The most common degree received was a biology degree followed by a humanities degree. A large majority at 31.8% also did not receive a college degree at all. 67.6% of responses came from women while only around 30% came from men, we also received a couple responses from people who identified as nonbinary.

Our second featured a variety of responses from vast groups of people ranging from U.S. citizens to a few internationals. In our survey, people from various age groups ranging between under 18 to 55 years old answered, and the dominant group was 35-55 years old. We found women were the overwhelming majority on the survey with 77.3% of respondents being female and only 22.7% being male. Another connection we found was that our respondents were more likely to be people that have completed higher levels of education, with 20.5% being high school educated, 22.7% college educated, and 47.7% being in graduate school. The primary group of respondents had a biology degree, with the 2nd most being those with a social studies degree. 43.2% of respondents were unfamiliar with synthetic biology while only 2.3% were familiar with it, which goes to show that synthetic biology is something the community still needs more education on.

Focus groups

To follow up on our survey results, we arranged three focus groups each with 4 or 5 participants. These focus groups were held on September 18, 21, and 25, 2024. The focus groups allowed us to ask survey participants about their concerns which could guide further development of the iGEM project. We grouped the people into focus group cohorts based on their demographics, whether they purchased organic products, which concerns they selected, and which survey they took. We wanted a diverse array of participants in the focus group so we made our cohorts with people of different ages, educational levels, etc. We also selected people who took different versions of the survey and had different responses.

We were primarily focused on why people did or did not select ethicality as a concern, and why people selected a main concern other than ethicality. We were also interested in what ideal chocolate production would look like to them. Further, we wanted to gauge people’s comfort with synthetic products like imitation vanilla or synthetic chocolate, factors that would attract them to synthetic chocolate, whether buying organic was important to them, factors that would turn them away from synthetic chocolate, whether they want government regulation, among other topics.

Focus group preparation

Before starting our focus group we extensively reviewed iGEM’s guidelines for focus groups to ensure we were going about it appropriately. We looked over a ”A bite-size guide to run focus groups for patient and public engagement” from Public Health England to understand what focus groups were and their purpose. From the EPA’s guidelines on focus groups, we learned that when conducting focus groups skillful facilitation is needed and that representative samples are very important. We learned that in planning we needed to brief the facilitator and the participants on the focus group's objectives and establish ground rules. A debrief must be done along with compiling a report of the proceedings.

What we learned from the focus groups

Thirteen people participated in one of three focus groups. Focus Group 1 participant a (Participant 1a) pointed out the fact that we should really lean into the artificial part of chocolate flavoring and use that fact to sway people and make them more comfortable. We found it incredibly interesting that people did not mind genetically modified organisms (GMOs) and GMO labeling. In fact we found that some people actually preferred those products, for example, participant 2c said that GMOs had the potential to use fewer pesticides and therefore would be more attractive to them. In terms of an ethically sourced label, it was universally agreed that at the very least makes people look into the industry and why the label was on the product.

This question specifically prompted some interesting discussion with participants 1b and 3b being concerned about the availability of the chocolate. While participants 1c and 3c were very concerned about the financial aspect. They brought up the very valuable point that it might not be an issue of morality or ethicality but rather which product was more financially attainable.

People were attracted to the idea of the product being more ethical and resistant to climate change, a good taste was also a repeatedly echoed priority. People would be turned away from bad taste as long as there are adverse health effects. If the product was too expensive participants such as Participant 3c would be turned away.

The regulation of this product was very important since it was produced with genetic engineering. Participant 2c brought up the idea that people might be skeptical of Lactococcus due to the name and brought up the COVID-19 vaccine as a comparison.

It was interesting that participants 1c, 3c, and 3b all recognized that people selected ethicality because the information was in front of them and people don’t normally think about how a product is made, which solidified the importance of our project in educating people about the current issues with chocolate production.

The biggest concerns about current chocolate production included the labor issues with participant 1c seeing a documentary about the issue. Participant 3a said they were concerned about the environment with everyone being able to attach to the idea. Participant 2c volunteered the idea that we should make it clear in the marketing that it is more ethically produced which will attract people.

We learned that in terms of drawing the line, people would need to know how the product is made, along with if it is over-processed or again had adverse health effects.

Calculations

Shown below are the statistical calculations we have done

Summary

Our team engaged with a diverse group of survey respondents. Although a number of idiosyncratic viewpoints were expressed, a few themes emerged. First is that our respondents were unafraid of synthetic biology or genetically modified products per se, especially if there are perceived benefits and potential to address important issues associated with the cocoa industry like labor and climate change. Second is that different responses statistically associated with the different survey versions simply reflect how the wording of a survey can affect response. In particular, the survey version affected whether people selected ethicality as a concern.