Exploration of Cocoa (Theobroma cacao) By-Products as Valuable Potential Resources in Livestock Feeds and Feeding Systems

Abstract

High cost of feeds and feeding management remain unresolved challenges facing livestock production globally specifically in developing countries. More than half of the production cost is associated with feeds and feeding alone; hence, it becomes imperative for livestock production science to explore lesser known or poorly exploited resources for use in animal feeds and feeding systems to reduce cost and increase productivity. One of such strategies is the use of alternative or nonconventional feed resources. Cocoa by-products have been reported as one of such nonconventional feed resources that can replace expensive and competitive conventional feed resources in livestock diets. Cocoa bean meal, cocoa bean shells, and cocoa pod husks are all potential but unexploited nutritive resources that can be considered as animal feed materials. Although their use is severely restricted by antinutritional factor (ANF) theobromine, which is toxic to livestock, there exist modern nutritional technologies capable of being applied to improve application of these resources in livestock feeding systems. Therefore, this chapter presents cocoa by-products as potential tropical feed resources in animal feeds and feeding systems with a view to providing solution to waste management problems associated with cocoa processing factories while increasing animal productivity and reducing cost of animal production.

Cocoa Bean Shell—A By-Product with Nutritional Properties and Biofunctional Potential

“…For these reasons, several theobromine remediation strategies have appeared in order to increase CBS use as a feeding material. Among these strategies, physicochemical treatments have been proposed, such as the boiling of CBS [143,144] or hydrotropic extraction [144]. Also, several studies have proposed fungi fermentation treatments of CBS for bio-detheobromination, showing that species such as A. niger, Talaromyces, or P. ostreatus spawn are capable of metabolizing theobromine, obtaining up to a 78.13% theobromine content reduction in CBS [69,130,145,146].…”

Inclusion of Cocoa Bean Shell in the Diet of Dairy Goats: Effects on Milk Production Performance and Milk Fatty Acid Profile

“…In recent years, CBS has also been targeting the livestock sector as a feedstuff (27). The main limitation in the use of CBS as feed ingredient is the presence of theobromine (3,7dimethylxanthine), an alkaloid prone to cause toxicity and feed intake reduction at high dietary concentrations (28), the levels of which can be decreased by means of hot water, alkali, microbial, or enzymatic detheobromination treatments (28)(29)(30).…”

Subproductos del cacao (Theobroma cacao) como alternativa para la mejora de la dieta balanceada en rumiantes

“…La industria que procesa los granos de cacao produce una cantidad significativa de desechos, estimado en 16 millones de tonelada de biomasa residual anual, conformado por el 80% de cada fruto de cacao incluidas las cáscaras de los granos de cacao, la espuma del cacao y las cascaras de las mazorcas del cacao (Vásquez et al, 2019). Gran parte del sector primario desecha estos subproductos en las etapas iniciales del procesamiento del grano de cacao, generando preocupación ambiental y social (Makinde et al, 2019).…”