Feeding the Family (bonus episode)

One of the perks of my job is that sometimes I wind up in delicious places. We do have some chocolates if you guys are interested in tasting them. Oh, no. Thanks. I'll pass. Alright. Well, then let's get out of here. Have you not seen my mouth watering over here? I'm visiting a company called California Cultured. They make chocolate and coffee. I'm at their headquarters in Sacramento, California. In a small kitchen, Steve Stearns, a former chef at high end restaurants, has three different chocolates lined up for me to try. Little thumbprint sized morsels laid out on a platter. I'll try to spare you the chewing sounds, but the first two samples taste a little sour. It's not my favorite. I'm gonna be honest. Okay. Steve says I'm picking up on the fruity, more acidic notes. The third one is a nice toasty dark chocolate. I think that's my favorite of the three. Mhmm. It's got a little bit more bitterness to it. Mhmm. Yeah. But it still has those fruity notes. So how do you guys feel, like, now having, for the first time, tasted chocolate from cells. You know, I didn't even think about the fact that it came from cells. Right. This is not like other chocolate. This is the chocolate of the future. It didn't come from a cacao plant grown in the ground. It was made here in a lab created from cells in a petri dish. And why would anyone do that? Climate change is making cocoa harder and costlier to produce. Cocoa prices have risen to record highs in recent years due to extreme rainfall, drought, and heat. But it's not just climate change that's impacting food. Tariffs, supply chain issues, and inflation mean we can all expect to pay more for all kinds of food. Beef prices have soared to all time highs with many families feeling the squeeze. Researchers are tracing price jumps, including an 80% spike in the cost of US vegetables to extreme weather linked to climate change. The key inflation report released last week shows prices have risen at the fastest pace since the start of the year. Many consumers are feeling that financial squeeze at the grocery store. I'm Amy Scott, and this is Feeding the Family, a Marketplace special about the business and economics of food. Over the next hour, reporters from around Marketplace will explore the complicated forces impacting the food on our tables this holiday season from farmers in Texas grappling with a sudden loss in federal funding to the ways TikTok is reshaping our meals. Plus, we even have a few cherished and inexpensive recipes to share. We're gonna start with one of my favorite holiday indulgences, chocolate. Because as wild as it sounds, growing chocolate and other treats in a lab may be the key to enjoying them years from now. About 85% of all the land that's currently used for chocolate just will not be suitable for it. …