Inside CSU鈥檚 new chocolate laboratory, and the delicious research happening there

In The NoCo

Inside CSU鈥檚 new chocolate laboratory, and the delicious research happening there

By In The NoCo,

Published February 14, 2025 at 5:40 AM MST

Ways To Subscribe

Caitlin Clark, a woman with a black shirt with white stripes and a light gray cardigan and glasses, smiles in front of a few indoor sunflowers. She's a senior food scientist with CSU's Food Innovations Center who studies chocolate and fermentation. — "There's just so much science in chocolate. There's so much to study, and there's a lot that we don't know," says Caitlin Clark, a senior food scientist with Colorado State University's Food Innovation Center. She just launched a new laboratory to advance what we know about chocolate, and to help bring new chocolate confections to life.

Researcher Caitlin Clark has a job a lot of people would envy. Clark is a food scientist who oversees a new laboratory devoted to the study of chocolate 鈥� how it鈥檚 made, what makes it taste so good, and how to make new and better varieties of it.

She and her team, based at the Colorado State University in Denver, work to dream up new confections that hopefully will end up on grocery store shelves or, maybe, in your box of Valentine鈥檚 Day chocolates.

Clark talked with Erin O鈥橳oole about her work in the new laboratory, and how her expertise in fermentation helped pave the way for her to become a chocolate researcher.

Tags

In The NoCo

KUNC's In The NoCo is a daily slice of stories, news, people and issues. It's a window to the communities along the Colorado Rocky Mountains. The show brings context and insight to the stories of the day, often elevating unheard voices in the process. And because life in Northern Colorado is a balance of work and play, we celebrate the lighter side of things here, too.

See stories by In The NoCo

Erin O'Toole

As the host of KUNC鈥檚 new program and podcast In the NoCo, I work closely with our producers and reporters to bring context and diverse perspectives to the important issues of the day. Northern Colorado is such a diverse and growing region, brimming with history, culture, music, education, civic engagement, and amazing outdoor recreation. I love finding the stories and voices that reflect what makes NoCo such an extraordinary place to live.

See stories by Erin O'Toole

Ariel Lavery

Ariel Lavery grew up in Louisville, Colorado and has returned to the Front Range after spending over 25 years moving around the country. She co-created the podcast Middle of Everywhere for WKMS, Murray State University鈥檚 NPR member station, and won Public Media Journalism awards in every season she produced for Middle of Everywhere. Her most recent series project is "The Burn Scar", published with The Modern West podcast. In it, she chronicles two years of her family鈥檚 financial and emotional struggle following the loss of her childhood home in the Marshall Fire.

See stories by Ariel Lavery

Brad Turner

Brad Turner is an executive producer in KUNC's newsroom. He manages the podcast team that makes In The NoCo, which also airs weekdays in Morning Edition and All Things Considered. His work as a podcaster and journalist has appeared on NPR's Weekend Edition, NPR Music, the PBS 暗黑爆料hour, Colorado Public Radio, MTV Online, the Denver Post, Boulder's Daily Camera, and the Longmont Times-Call.

See stories by Brad Turner