FERMENTED INGREDIENTS


recipes and equipment. And ultimately, it has to make economic sense. Fermtech’s claimed cost savings are consequently as important


to its


proposition as its carbon reduction figures. Sustainability may open the door, but cost and functionality are likely to determine whether manufacturers walk through it.


From laboratory curiosity to ingredient platform The wider market suggests that fermentation is moving well beyond its traditional associations with foods such as yoghurt, kimchi and kombucha. Fortune Business Insights estimates the


global fermented ingredients market was worth $44.02 billion in 2025 and forecasts it to reach $115.39 billion by 2034. The category encompasses applications well beyond food and confectionery, so the figure should not be interpreted as a measure of demand for fermented chocolate ingredients specifically. It does, however, illustrate the scale of the broader ingredient platform being developed around fermentation. Consumer interest is also moving


beyond the traditional fermented-food category. Innova Market Insights has reported continued growth around microbial ingredients, including probiotics and postbiotics, while wider interest in functional and plant-based foods


is creating an increasingly


receptive environment for fermentation- derived ingredients. For confectionery, however, the health


halo surrounding fermentation may be less important than its technical capabilities. A fermented ingredient does not


become attractive simply because it carries a fermentation story. It needs to deliver flavour, texture, functionality, cost and consistency – and it needs to do so without compromising the indulgence that remains fundamental to the category. That makes fermentation’s ability to


deliver sensory benefits arguably more important than its associations with gut health or wellness. The industry is also beginning to


distinguish between different forms of fermentation. Solid-state fermentation, fungal fermentation and precision fermentation can involve very different organisms, substrates and processes, yet they are increasingly being considered under the same broad technological umbrella. For manufacturers, the terminology is


ultimately less important than the result. Can the ingredient work at industrial scale? Can it be incorporated into existing processes? Can it deliver a recognisable sensory benefit? And can it compete


JULY 2026 • KENNEDY’S CONFECTION • 19


economically with the raw material it is intended to complement or replace? Those questions will determine which


fermentation technologies make the transition from interesting science to commercially meaningful confectionery ingredient.


What comes next? The confectionery industry has spent decades refining the final stages of chocolate manufacture, but some of the most consequential ingredient innovation is now moving further upstream. At origin, better-controlled could


cocoa fermentation being used give producers


greater influence over flavour. In ingredient development, fermentation is


to create cocoa


alternatives and extract greater value from agricultural side streams. Further downstream, fungal fermentation


being deployed to improve sweetness and taste modulation as manufacturers attempt to reformulate around sugar. These are very different applications,


but they share the same underlying idea: biology can be used as a manufacturing tool. That does not mean fermentation will suddenly replace conventional ingredient processing. Nor does every fermented ingredient automatically offer a better


is


environmental, nutritional or economic proposition. The technology still has to overcome the realities of scale, cost, regulation and consumer acceptance. There is


also a danger in treating


fermentation as a solution in itself. The industry’s interest will ultimately be determined by what the technology delivers rather than the process used to produce it. A manufacturer will not


reformulate a chocolate product


simply because an ingredient has been fermented; it will do so if that ingredient solves a problem, improves the product or creates an opportunity that conventional ingredients cannot. That may be where fermentation’s


greatest potential lies. It can expand what confectionery is able to make. Fermentation was once something the


industry inherited from agriculture, a process that happened to cocoa before the bean entered the factory. Increasingly, it is becoming something ingredient developers can manipulate, scale and engineer. For a category facing pressure on raw formulation,


materials, sustainability


and cost simultaneously, that makes fermentation less a passing ingredient trend and more a technology worth watching and making note of.


Page 1  |  Page 2  |  Page 3  |  Page 4  |  Page 5  |  Page 6  |  Page 7  |  Page 8  |  Page 9  |  Page 10  |  Page 11  |  Page 12  |  Page 13  |  Page 14  |  Page 15  |  Page 16  |  Page 17  |  Page 18  |  Page 19  |  Page 20  |  Page 21  |  Page 22  |  Page 23  |  Page 24  |  Page 25  |  Page 26  |  Page 27  |  Page 28  |  Page 29  |  Page 30  |  Page 31  |  Page 32  |  Page 33  |  Page 34  |  Page 35  |  Page 36  |  Page 37  |  Page 38  |  Page 39  |  Page 40  |  Page 41  |  Page 42  |  Page 43  |  Page 44