Mondelēz creates chocolate bars using Celleste’s cell-cultured cocoa butter

Food Dive reported the development on 2026-04-15. The milestone with a major food company positions the startup’s technology to enter the market within two years, Celleste’s CEO said.

The report places the news in a wider commercial context. Mondelēz International made a dozen milk chocolate bars using cocoa butter produced from cell-cultured technology developed by Celleste Bio, a feat that sets the stage for the startup to scale production within the next two years.

For the food sector, the practical implications extend beyond the immediate announcement. Golomb said Celleste is “talking to everybody” who uses large amounts of chocolate about purchasing the company’s lab-grown cocoa butter and powder. Celleste’s goal is to produce 50,000 tons of cocoa butter annually by 2035, or roughly 5% of the 2 million tons needed to support the chocolate industry each year.

Attention now turns to how companies, customers and regulators respond. Cocoa butter is the primary fat used in making chocolate and is essential to creating the richness and melt-in-your-mouth feeling of the sweet. Chocolate manufacturers spend about $16 billion on cocoa ingredients a year, Celleste previously said, with cocoa butter making up nearly half of that total.