Chocolate

Completeness scorecard

Deterministic gap audit — no score is composite, no cell is LLM-judged. Each chip is re-derivable by re-running tools/evidence/build-ingredient-scorecard.mjs. review: residuals and missing data are worked autonomously via data/evidence/ingredient-scorecard-review-flags.csv and wiki/completeness-gaps.md.

Chocolate is a processed derivative of cocoa and inherits cadmium from its cocoa-solid fraction; cadmium content scales approximately with cocoa-solid percentage and with cocoa origin.

Heavy metal contamination profile

Per-analyte snapshot derived from the machine-readable contamination_profile in the frontmatter above. data gap indicates the literature has been reviewed for this commodity-analyte combination and no usable occurrence data was found (a finding, not a placeholder). The Key sources column shows the top 2-3 contributing sources by year and sample size, with numbered wikilink aliases.

Why this commodity accumulates cadmium

Chocolate carries cadmium primarily through its cocoa solids, which concentrate cadmium from the cocoa beans during processing (see cocoa for the upstream story). Cocoa butter, the other principal cocoa-derived ingredient in chocolate, carries relatively little cadmium. As a consequence, dark chocolate (higher cocoa-solid percentage) carries more cadmium per serving than milk chocolate (lower cocoa-solid percentage, higher milk and sugar fractions), and baking or confectionery chocolate made from cocoa powder can be particularly cadmium-heavy. White chocolate, which contains cocoa butter but not cocoa solids, carries minimal cadmium from the cocoa pathway.

Ranges by source, region, and variety

Pending ingest of commodity-level occurrence data. EFSA 2009 Table 1 of approximately 140,000 European samples reported a mean cadmium concentration in chocolate of 0.090 mg/kg, which is one-half the mean reported for cocoa (0.178 mg/kg), consistent with the dilution from milk, sugar, and cocoa butter in typical chocolate formulations. Dark-chocolate-specific values are higher; brand and origin variation is substantial and is the subject of Consumer Reports and HBBF published testing that is outside this wiki’s brand-level firewall scope.

Processing effects

Pending. Formulation (percent cocoa solids, presence of milk, use of cocoa powder versus chocolate liquor) is the dominant processing-level driver of finished-product cadmium. Conching and tempering do not meaningfully alter cadmium content.

Ingredient-derivative risk

A chocolate-containing ingredient list translates to cadmium exposure primarily through the cocoa-solid fraction. Apps estimating cadmium from ingredient lists should weight the chocolate contribution by approximate percent cocoa solids when that information is available on the label, and default to a representative mid-range cocoa-solid percentage (approximately 35 to 50 percent for most mass-market chocolates) when it is not.

Mitigation options

Pending. Upstream cocoa-sourcing decisions are the meaningful mitigation lever for chocolate manufacturers; see cocoa.

Abt 2018 sample-level occurrence values

Abt et al. 2018 is the primary FDA U.S.-market occurrence dataset for finished chocolate products. Per-matrix means below; full ranges and stratification by percent cocoa and by Latin America versus Africa origin are in the source page. The 2020 perspective Abt and Robin 2020 contextualizes these values within the JECFA-and-Codex regulatory landscape and the JECFA finding that cocoa-and-chocolate consumption can drive 30-69 percent of total Cd intake in high-consumer children.

The four-fold higher Cd in dark chocolate versus milk chocolate reflects the higher percent cocoa content in dark chocolate; Cd and Pb were both significantly correlated with percent cocoa across the dataset. These values count as one literature evidence primary source under persistent-wiki-ingest-rule synthesis discipline; Abt 2020 is a secondary citation that does not add new primary data.

Lead in chocolate

Chocolate inherits Pb from its cocoa-solid fraction with the four-fold dark-versus-milk gradient documented in Abt et al. 2018: dark chocolate mean 0.03 ± 0.02 mg/kg, milk chocolate mean 0.01 ± 0.01 mg/kg, across the 144-sample U.S. retail convenience-sample survey. Pb correlated significantly with percent cocoa solids, mirroring the Cd pattern. The 2020 FDA perspective (Abt and Robin 2020) frames chocolate Pb as principally anthropogenic-deposition-driven via the cocoa bean rather than added during chocolate manufacture. The U.S. FDA Pb-in-candy guidance recommends a maximum level of 0.1 mg/kg in candy including chocolate candy; finished chocolate products in the Abt 2018 dataset fall comfortably below the guidance, though high-percent-cocoa dark chocolate has been documented at or above this level in some independent third-party testing not yet in the loaded corpus.

Nickel in chocolate

Chocolate carries Ni proportional to its cocoa-solid fraction. Flyvholm et al. 1984 reports bitter (dark) chocolate at 1.9 µg/g (range 1.3 to 2.7 µg/g, n=7) and milk chocolate at 0.7 µg/g (range 0.4 to 1.2 µg/g, n=11) from the post-1969 AAS/PIXE literature. The roughly 3x gap between bitter and milk chocolate maps cleanly onto the cocoa-solid percentage difference, which is consistent with the >9 µg/g concentration in cocoa itself (Flyvholm 1984). EFSA Nickel 2020 subsequently confirmed cocoa among the principal dietary Ni sources and dark chocolate inherits that load. Nickel-sensitized individuals (systemic contact dermatitis-prone, approximately 10 to 15 percent of the European adult population per EFSA) can experience flare-ups from high-cocoa dark chocolate consumption; the EFSA acute LOAEL of 4.3 µg Ni/kg b.w. for eczematous flare-up identifies chocolate-heavy consumers as one of the dietary subgroups at risk. Pacor et al. 2003 documents cocoa-and-chocolate as the most consistently symptom-aggravating food category in nickel-reactive recurrent aphthous stomatitis (92.6 percent of patients).

Aluminum in chocolate

Chocolate carries Al from a combination of cocoa-solid uptake (cacao tree root Al accumulation from tropical soils) and any processing-equipment or alkalization-step contribution. Elsheikh et al. 2020 reports Al in cocoa sweets in Saudi Arabia (B-tier journal; matrix-specific Al concentrations in cocoa sweets), and biscuit brand 6 in that survey reached a remarkable 291,900 ppb total Al (outlier value that the source page flags for follow-up). Direct U.S. or EU-market chocolate Al concentration distributions are not yet loaded on the wiki. Phase 3b ingest of primary cocoa-and-chocolate Al occurrence work would firm this cell.

Chromium in chocolate

Hernandez et al. 2019 documents that cocoa-containing finished products consistently show the highest Cr concentrations among the French food categories surveyed: chocolate-containing breakfast cereals 360 to 483 ppb total Cr; a dry chocolate biscuit averaged 103 ppb. The paper measures both total Cr and Cr-VI by speciation; whether the Cr-VI fraction in finished chocolate products is significant requires the underlying Hernandez 2019 speciation tables and additional cross-source confirmation. The total-Cr signal supports flagging chocolate as a Cr-bearing finished-product category; Cr-VI-specific speciation data for chocolate matrices is a documented data gap.

Other metals of concern

The remaining HMI-tracked metals on chocolate (iAs, tAs, tHg, MeHg, Sn, U) do not have strong chocolate-specific occurrence evidence in the loaded corpus. Chocolate is not a primary arsenic matrix, is not canned in tin, and does not carry meaningful Hg or U at population level. These metals remain at status: pending on the contamination_profile.

Regulatory limits that apply

• jecfa-cadmium-ptmi — JECFA 91st meeting 2022: cocoa powder alone drives a 97.5th-percentile cadmium exposure of 12 µg/kg b.w./month in European children aged 7 to 11, indicating that chocolate products heavy in cocoa powder warrant particular attention for child consumers.
• codex-cadmium-mls / Codex CXS 193-1995 — International Cd MLs scaled by cocoa-solid percentage: chocolate less than 30 percent cocoa solids (including milk chocolate) 0.3 mg/kg; 30 to less than 50 percent 0.7 mg/kg; 50 to less than 70 percent 0.8 mg/kg; 70 percent or greater 0.9 mg/kg; cocoa powder (100 percent cocoa solids dry-matter basis) 2.0 mg/kg.
• eu-2023-915-cadmium — EU Cd maximum levels for chocolate products: 0.10 mg/kg (100 ug/kg) for milk chocolate with less than 30 percent total dry cocoa solids; 0.30 mg/kg (300 ug/kg) for chocolate with less than 50 percent total dry cocoa solids and milk chocolate with at least 30 percent total dry cocoa solids; 0.80 mg/kg (800 ug/kg) for chocolate with at least 50 percent total dry cocoa solids.
• FDA Pb in candy: recommended maximum level 0.1 mg/kg for candy including chocolate candy (Abt and Robin 2020).
• EFSA Nickel 2020 — Chronic TDI 13 µg Ni/kg b.w./day; acute LOAEL 4.3 µg Ni/kg b.w. for eczematous flare-up in sensitized individuals. No chocolate-specific Ni ML at international level.

Sources

Auto-generated from source-page frontmatter. The “Used on this page for” column is populated by the orchestrator’s POPULATE-SOURCE-LEGEND action; pending entries appear as *[awaiting synthesis]*.

Page history

The five most recent substantive edits to this page. The full version history lives in git; when DOI minting comes online (see schema docs), each entry below will also link to a version-pinned DataCite DOI.