Visit of Colombian industry partner

On June 7, 2022, Maria Jose Chica, Director of Research at Casa Luker SA visited the IPB. Casa Luker is among the largest and oldest Colombian cocoa and chocolate producers and both, the IPB and Casa Luker are currently launching a collaboration. With support from the Alexander von Humboldt foundation, both partners want to investigate and improve fine-flavor cocoa bean fermentation for local farmers in Colombia. Two of the IPB scientists who will be involved in the upcoming project, Miguel Fernandez and Annegret Laub, gave Maria Jose Chica a tour of the metabolomics facilities including LC-, GC-MS, and NMR devices at the Bioorganic Chemistry department. Both guest and hosts agreed that the IPB’s expertise and equipment in plant metabolomics is exceptionally well-suited to dissect the biochemistry and microbiology of cocoa fermentation. In August 2022, both IPB scientists will travel to Colombia together with Professor Ludger Wessjohann to visit the company facilities and start experimentation.