Enhancing cacao fermentation for small-scale farmers: quality comparison with traditional process

The fermentation of cacao beans as a postharvest process yields necessary metabolites, which are flavor precursors of the unique cocoa flavor and aroma developed during drying and roasting. Quality cacao fermentation is governed by various requirements, crucial of which is the amount of wet beans necessary to achieve the temperature of fermenting mass between 45-50℃, starting on the third day until the end of fermentation. To achieve this, it is necessary to use large amounts of cacao wet beans (25 kg – 500 kg) placed in fermentation boxes. For small-scale farmers with a minimal amount of harvested beans, this volume requirement poses a challenge. This study compared a pod husk-enhanced small-scale fermentation set-up [use of 3 kg wet beans with 4 kg cacao pod husk (3FB+4CPH)] with a large-scale fermentation set-up [use of 25 kg wet beans (25FB)] by evaluating physicochemical parameters [pH of pulp, pH of beans, temperature of beans, temperature of cacao pod husk (CPH), titratable acidity (TA), and fermentation index (FI)] relevant to cacao fermentation. Also, dried samples from the fermented beans were compared with dried samples of unfermented beans in terms of FI. For the fermenting beans, the temperature, pH (pulp and beans), and TA were not significantly different between the small-scale and large-scale set-ups. The FI values for the small-scale and large-scale set-ups were comparable, exceeding 1.0, indicative of well-fermented beans. For the dried beans, there was a significant difference between the unfermented dried (UD) and fermented dried (FD_3FB+4CPH; FD_25FB) beans in terms of FI. The findings suggest that the small-scale fermentation is a viable, cost-effective alternative to the traditional fermentation set-up. This study demonstrates that small-scale fermentation can achieve comparable quality to traditional methods, addressing a critical need for smallholder farmers.