The kashrus issues involved in the manufacture of chocolate are surprisingly intricate. To understand these issues, let’s first begin with a short history of chocolate and a detailed description of the manufacturing process itself.

History

Many people think the chocolate industry originated in Switzerland. This is an easy misconception, given that the Swiss were definitely instrumental in bringing the industry to where it is today and that the per capita consumption of chocolate in Switzerland is 21 pounds annually, nearly double that of the United States!

However, the Olmec civilization on the Mexican Gulf Coast is credited with having first used the fruit of the cacao tree somewhere around 1500 BCE. The first known use of chocolate was as a drink called “chocalatl,” which was such a luxury among the 8th century Mayan nobility in Mexico that noblemen had the drink buried with them in their tomb. This cacao bean concoction was first introduced to the western European world in the early 1500’s when the Spanish explorer, Hernando Cortez returned from an expedition to the Aztec civilization in Mexico with three chests of cacao beans and some chocalatl. Cortez introduced the drink to the Spanish aristocracy and the drink’s popularity grew, gradually spreading through Europe and into England. From these small beginnings, cacao bean exportation became quite a large industry. The Dutch were the first to use the beans for something other than a chocolate drink. In 1828 they began producing cocoa powder by taking out (expelling) the fat, known as cocoa butter, from the cacao beans. Eventually, by combining this cocoa butter with the powder and sugar, the development of chocolate, as we know it, began. In 1876, a Swiss company introduced milk into the chocolate, thus producing the world’s first milk chocolate.

Chocolate Production

Chocolate is made by combining the roasted ground kernel, or nib (which becomes chocolate liquor through processing), of the cacao bean with sugar, cocoa butter, and other ingredients.

The cacao bean comes from the Theobroma Cacao, a tropical evergreen tree. These trees are grown in the wet lowland tropics of Central and South America, West Africa and Southeast Asia. The trees grow to approximately 25 feet and start giving fruit four years after they have been planted. Seedpods of up to one foot in length and four inches thick grow directly on the branches and trunk of the tree and contain as many as forty seeds or beans.

After the seed pods are harvested, the beans are removed, placed in piles, covered with banana leaves and allowed to ferment. They are then dried to prevent molding.

Now the beans are ready for chocolate production. The beans are roasted and the meaty kernels or nibs are extracted. Approximately 50% of the nibs is a fatty substance known as cocoa butter. When the nibs are ground, the resulting liquid produced by the friction is called cocoa liquor. (No, you will not become intoxicated by this substance!) By pressing this cocoa liquor through filters, the cocoa butter or fat becomes separated from the cocoa powder.

The original unsweetened cocoa liquor can be poured into molds and be sold as cooking chocolate. If the desired product is dark or milk chocolate, the cocoa liquor is combined with cocoa butter, sugar, vanilla, or vanillin, and/or lecithin (and milk powder for milk chocolate).

After the ingredients have been combined, the gritty mixture goes through a system called “five rollers.“ These are grinding rollers that reduce the mixture to a paste and continue until the mixture has become fine. At this stage, the rollers may produce heat which we will discuss later.

Afterwards, the mass goes to smoothing machines called conches, where the chocolate is mixed for a few hours to several days. The chocolate can be heated in these machines up to 160 degrees F (Source: Groliers Encyclopedia). During the conching process, complex chemical changes take place that further develop the chocolate’s delicate flavor (ibid.).

After conching, the mixture will either go to storage tanks for holding and shipping, or to the molding lines. When the chocolate is shipped, it is shipped hot in tank trucks. If the chocolate is to be molded into bars, drops, disks, etc., it first goes through a tempering machine where the temperature is properly adjusted to insure proper production. As the OK always tries to research products from the source, we sent one of our chocolate mavens, Rabbi Shimon Lasker of Brussels, to the Côte D’Ivoire (the Ivory Coast), one of the sources of cocoa beans in West Africa, to complete our investigation of the production from start to finish. As a result of his work, we discovered new kashrus concerns missing from production.

Kashrus Issues in Chocolate Production

There are many issues involving the certification of chocolate, and almost all of them affect the abovementioned production processes. • As mentioned, chocolate is made with cocoa butter. Most countries do not permit the use of substitute fats for cocoa butter. Consequently, it had been generally accepted in the industry that a product containing the original ingredients for chocolate would be acceptable as they are all of plant origin.

However, this is not necessarily true.

England, Ireland, and Denmark permit the use of CBE, or cocoa butter equivalent, in products called chocolate. [Note: CBE has the same smooth “melts in your mouth” consistency of cocoa butter, as opposed to CBS (see below) which doesn’t always have the same fine chocolatey feel and taste.] These fats can be of dubious kashrus sources and must be from a kosher source.

• The equipment used for chocolate production as mentioned above is heated, and any non-kosher ingredients used on this equipment would necessitate the equipment to be properly kosherized. The proper way to kosherize chocolate production equipment is with boiling water.

Most companies will absolutely refuse to put water on this equipment. Firstly, because introducing water greatly increases the possibility of bacterial contamination, and secondly, water does not mix well with chocolate and would have an adverse effect on the chocolate causing it to become like fudge (and clogging the equipment). Consequently, it is quite difficult to properly kosherize chocolate equipment.

• Lecithin, an emulsifier which aids in establishing the proper viscosity of the chocolate during production, can contain non-kosher ingredients. We have found lecithin produced in Europe that has ingredients of questionable origin.

• Another issue is that the chocolate liquor which is molded into bars for cooking chocolate is, in some plants, produced on dairy equipment. Note, this is yet another “group 1” (inherently kosher) pareve ingredient that has been proven to be incorrectly categorized.

• Cocoa butter, also considered to be a “group 1” pareve ingredient, can be produced on dairy equipment.

• Milk chocolate uses powdered milk which can be produced on non-kosher equipment.

• Dark chocolate, long considered a “group 1” pareve ingredient, can be dairy and non-kosher for a number of reasons:

1. It is generally produced on dairy equipment which is quite difficult to kosherize properly.

2. Certain dark chocolates contain butter oil for bloom prevention (to deter the whitening of chocolate).

3. These butter oils can be produced on non-kosher equipment. The OK Labs found that this common “group 1” dairy ingredient was being produced on the same equipment as animal fats at one of the largest butter oil producers in the world! The equipment was not kosherized properly.

• Cocoa, chocolate liquor and cocoa butter sometimes come into contact with citric acid which can be problematic for Passover.

• Whey powder, also used in chocolate production, is not always from a kosher source. Certain butters are produced from whey, which creates another problem with the butter used in chocolate.

All of the above concerns are involved in the production of what is termed “pure” chocolate.

Many of the products we think are chocolate are really produced with cocoa butter substitutes, CBS. The fats can be of non-kosher sources and are often used in the coatings used for ice creams, candies, cakes, etc. This is not classified as chocolate but called compound coating. To separate the processing of dark and dairy chocolate is a story in itself, since, as mentioned above, chocolate equipment is quite difficult to clean. To call a chocolate pure pareve, the chocolate would have to be produced on separate equipment.

Barry-Callebaut-Worldwide and Blommers Chocolate (in Greenville, PA only) are two companies that have made a great effort to keep separate pareve equipment.

It was the OK Labs who were pioneers in this field by being the first kosher certification agency in the world to insist on separate equipment for pareve chocolate, thereby supplying the discriminating kashrus consumer with truly pareve chocolate, not pareve chocolate of dubious origin.

OK Labs is also a pioneer in the field of cholav Israel chocolate. The majority of cholav Israel chocolate on the market is made on lines that also produce non-cholav Israel chocolate, using all sorts of dubious leniencies to do so. Barry-Callebaut, along with the able help of Stefan Vervliet, Willy Geergerts and Rabbi Shimon Lasker, has mass produced a superior cholav Israel chocolate that has absolutely no contact with non-cholav Israel milk. Another first from the OK Labs in enhancing kashrus standards!

When you see an OK pareve or OK Dairy on your chocolate products, you can enjoy them even more knowing how much effort and care has gone into their certification!