Forget cocoa for a moment. A food innovation lab in Copenhagen is experimenting with a very different way of making chocolate-like treats, using food waste and leftovers instead. Food and travel creators Anders Husa and Kaitlin Orr recently gave their followers a look inside Spora, a food innovation lab led by Chef Rasmus Munk.
The duo shared a video of their visit on Instagram, where they explored some of the lab’s unusual food experiments. One of the first products they tried was designed to look and taste like chocolate, despite having no cocoa in it.
“This is not chocolate. It looks like chocolate, it tastes like chocolate, but it’s made from food waste,” Kaitlin said while introducing the product.
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Spora brings chefs and scientists together to work on new food ideas, including alternative protein sources and sustainable ingredients. The lab is also looking at ways familiar foods can be recreated using ingredients that would otherwise be discarded.
“The team behind Alchemist in Copenhagen, the most exciting restaurant in the world right now, has created a science lab where they’re reinventing what food can be. Inside the lab, chefs and scientists are tackling global food challenges and developing the food of the future,” she said.
During the visit, members of The Hungries, the food club run by Anders and Kaitlin, sampled several of Spora’s experiments. Among them was Snap, a cocoa-free chocolate alternative made using leftovers from beer production.
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According to Kaitlin, Snap comes in three varieties – dark, milk and gold. Its nutty, caramel-like flavour is made from legumes. The group also tried a Snap truffle filled with lemon curd, with Kaitlin expressing surprise at how closely it resembled chocolate.
But the tasting did not stop at chocolate alternatives. The group also tried a green microbiome smoothie and a meat-free rapeseed cake salad. One of the more unusual items was the Ant Hill, a cocktail from Alchemist made with ants and garnished with a real ant.
In the caption, Anders highlighted Spora’s work on cocoa-free chocolate made from food waste and protein-rich alternatives that do not rely on meat. He also mentioned Chef Rasmus’ work at Alchemist, where he is exploring new ideas around fine dining while looking for ways to make food more sustainable.
