Cacao by-products

Beans are a small part of the cacao fruit. The husk, the pulp and the bean shell are the rest, and a great deal is claimed for them. Here each use is sorted by the strongest evidence read for it, from established practice down to an idea in a review article.

4 established2 pilot7 research1 claimed only

The four classes

Established: An official text describes it as existing practice, or a regulator has authorised it for sale. Not a statement about how much is done: no tonnage was found for any use.
Pilot: Done at pilot scale in a published study.
Research: Laboratory work or a small feeding trial. Most uses of the husk are here.
Claimed: Proposed in the literature, with no study of it read.

Every use, by scale of evidence

Uses of cacao pod husk, pulp and bean shell, classified by the scale of the evidence
Part	Use	Scale	On what basis	The constraint	Studies
Pod husk	Left on the farm, or returned to the soil as fertiliser	Established: existing practice or authorised for sale	Described by the European risk assessor in 2008 as what happens in many places.	Husks left untreated are widely said to harbour disease; no measurement was read.	Official text
Pulp	Pulp, juice and concentrate as food	Established: existing practice or authorised for sale	Authorised in the European Union in 2020 as a traditional food with a history of use in Brazil; one notice accepted without questions by the United States regulator in 2021.	Must be labelled as cocoa pulp or pulp juice. The American letter says it is not an affirmation of safety status.	Official text
Bean shell	Animal feed	Established: existing practice or authorised for sale	The European risk assessor records shells, cocoa bean meal and germs as used in feed in Europe.	Theobromine limits apply, and feed makers keep cocoa by-products out of dog and horse feed. Goats given shell ate less; broilers did worse above 1% of the diet.	Renna et al. 2022; Day and Dilworth 1984
Bean shell	Left in cocoa products	Established: existing practice or authorised for sale	Limited, not used: the international standard caps shell and germ in cocoa mass at 5% of fat-free dry matter.	Current European law states no figure; the old directive that did has been repealed.	Official text
Pulp	Brewing adjunct	Pilot: done at pilot scale in a study	Beer brewed with 30% pulp in a pilot fermenter.	One study.	Nunes et al. 2017
Bean shell	Extraction of theobromine, polyphenols and fat	Pilot: done at pilot scale in a study	Scaled from the bench to a pilot reactor.	One study.	Grillo et al. 2019
Pod husk	Compost	Research: laboratory or small trial	Improved soil and seedling growth, and reduced black pod on plantlets, in a laboratory and nursery study.	Not tested on a farm.	Doungous et al. 2018
Pod husk	Pectin	Research: laboratory or small trial	Three laboratory extractions recovered between 7.5 and 19.5% of the dry husk.	The pectin was of a low-methoxyl, highly acetylated kind that gelled weakly. No commercial production was found.	Vriesmann et al. 2011; Vriesmann et al. 2012; Valladares-Diestra et al. 2022
Pod husk	Bioethanol	Research: laboratory or small trial	31 to 45 g of ethanol per kg of husk in a laboratory biorefinery.	A low yield, reported by the study itself.	Valladares-Diestra et al. 2022
Pod husk	Biochar	Research: laboratory or small trial	Made in the laboratory across a range of temperatures.	It carried polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons, from about 100 to about 2,500 ng/g depending on how it was made.	Hung et al. 2026
Pod husk	Animal feed	Research: laboratory or small trial	Small trials with broilers and rabbits tolerated up to a fifth of the diet.	Theobromine. Rats fed husk with its theobromine intact were harmed, and European law caps theobromine in feed.	Alemawor et al. 2010; Esong et al. 2015; Oduro-Mensah et al. 2020
Pulp	Sweetening chocolate in place of sugar	Research: laboratory or small trial	A laboratory chocolate with up to 20% of a gel made from pulp juice concentrate and pod pith.	Its environmental advantage is modelled for a factory that does not exist, and nothing read says whether it may be sold as chocolate.	Mishra et al. 2024
Bean shell	Infusion (“cocoa tea”)	Research: laboratory or small trial	One laboratory found no ochratoxin, biogenic amine or microbial problem in its own samples.	The shell is where ochratoxin A, lead and some pesticide residues concentrate, and Salmonella is hard to kill in it. One clean batch is not a safety record.	Delgado-Ospina et al. 2023; Izurieta and Komitopoulou 2012; Amézqueta et al. 2005; Manton 2010; Dankyi et al. 2015
Pod husk	Bioplastics, potash for soap, large-scale biorefineries	Claimed: proposed, with no study read	Proposed in review articles.	No study of any of them was read, and no operating plant was found.	None

How much of the fruit is not bean

Most of it. The husk is put at between two-thirds and three-quarters of the weight of the fruit, taking an average fruit as about 400 g. This is a figure the European risk assessor took from earlier literature, not one it measured. (source 1)
The shell is 8 to 10% of the raw bean by weight. (source 1)
The pulp is mostly water and sugar: 96 to 97% water and carbohydrate by weight, according to the company that notified it to the American regulator, and about three-quarters sugar on a dry basis in Brazilian hybrids, varying widely between them and with ripeness. (Moretti et al. 2023; source 2)
A measured mass balance of the whole fruit, and the tonnage of husk produced worldwide: neither was found. “Millions of tonnes” appears in papers as background without a source.

Not shown: The proportions for any particular variety. They vary, and no study that weighed them was read.

The constraint on feeding it to animals: theobromine

Cocoa by-products are tempting as feed because they are free. They contain theobromine, which animals tolerate very differently.

How much: 1.5 to 4.0 g/kg in husk meal, 8.0 to 16.9 g/kg in bean shell and 20 to 33 g/kg in cocoa bean meal, with the assessor noting that data are lacking. (source 1)
The legal limit in European feed is 300 mg/kg of complete feed, 200 for pigs, and 50 for dogs, rabbits, horses and fur animals. (source 3)
The assessor concluded in 2008 that the limits then in force might not fully protect dairy cows and pigs. The pig limit is now lower and a higher allowance for adult cattle has gone. (source 1)
In the trials: rats were harmed by husk with its theobromine and not once a fungus had removed it; broilers did worse above 1% shell meal, and pure theobromine was a little more toxic than the same amount in the meal. (Oduro-Mensah et al. 2020; Day and Dilworth 1984)

Not shown: A safe inclusion rate for any animal. The trials are small, and one of them used 27 rabbits.

Not shown: Anything about pets beyond the feed limit. Theobromine poisoning in dogs is a veterinary subject not covered here.

Why the shell is the cautious case

The shell is the outside of the bean. Whatever lands on a bean during fermentation, drying and storage lands there.

Three contaminants have been measured concentrating in the shell: ochratoxin A, most of which left with the shell in three studies; lead, which isotope work places on the shell; and a neonicotinoid insecticide found more often and at higher levels there than in the shelled bean. (Amézqueta et al. 2005; Manda et al. 2009; Manton 2010; Dankyi et al. 2015)
Salmonella survives heating in it: at low moisture each tenfold reduction took about two and a half minutes at the higher temperature tested, and adding moisture made the bacteria much easier to kill. (Izurieta and Komitopoulou 2012)
The international standard for cocoa mass, and the former European directive, both limited shell to 5% of the fat-free dry matter. The current European directive gives no figure and mentions shell only in saying cocoa powder is made from beans that have been shelled. (source 4; source 5; source 6)
One study of shell infusion found nothing of concern in its own samples. (Delgado-Ospina et al. 2023)

Not shown: That shell products are unsafe. Nothing read measured harm; the point is that contaminants concentrate there and the evidence of safety is one batch.

Not shown: How often shell carries Salmonella or mould toxins in trade.

Sources

Studies are cited by author and year and summarised, with their limits, on the research pages. The official documents are listed here. Each was downloaded and read, and the passage relied on was checked to be in it.

European Food Safety Authority. Theobromine as undesirable substances in animal feed. Scientific Opinion of the Panel on Contaminants in the Food Chain. The EFSA Journal (2008) 725, 1-66 (2008-06-10). web.archive.org/web/2015id_/http://www.efsa.europa.eu/sites/default/files/scientific_output/files/main_documents/725.pdf
Risk assessment · EU
US Food and Drug Administration. FDA response letter, GRAS Notice No. GRN 000947 (cacao pulp and cacao fruit juice concentrate) (2021-12-21). www.fda.gov/media/155710/download
Official guidance, not law · US
European Parliament and Council of the European Union. Directive 2002/32/EC of the European Parliament and of the Council of 7 May 2002 on undesirable substances in animal feed (consolidated version 28.11.2019) (2019-11-28). eur-lex.europa.eu/legal-content/EN/TXT/?uri=CELEX:02002L0032-20191128
Law · EU
Codex Alimentarius Commission (FAO/WHO). Standard for Cocoa (Cacao) Mass (Cocoa/Chocolate Liquor) and Cocoa Cake, CODEX STAN 141-1983 (adopted 1983, revision 2001, amended 2014) (2014). web.archive.org/web/2022id_/https://www.fao.org/input/download/standards/69/CXS_141e.pdf
Voluntary international text · International
Council of the European Communities. Council Directive 73/241/EEC of 24 July 1973 on the approximation of the laws of the Member States relating to cocoa and chocolate products intended for human consumption (1973-07-24). eur-lex.europa.eu/legal-content/EN/TXT/?uri=CELEX:31973L0241
Law · EU (no longer in force)
European Parliament and Council of the European Union. Directive 2000/36/EC of the European Parliament and of the Council of 23 June 2000 relating to cocoa and chocolate products intended for human consumption (consolidated version 18.11.2013) (2013-11-18). eur-lex.europa.eu/legal-content/EN/TXT/?uri=CELEX:02000L0036-20131118
Law · EU

Reviewed 9 October 2026.

Not reached

Placenta, sweatings and fermentation wastewater
Cocoa cake and press residues as by-products in their own right
Husk ash as potash
Shell as mulch or fuel
The novel-food status of husk and shell in the European Union
Any techno-economic assessment of a husk or shell process