Earlier today, Trina Stout brought to our attention a food crime in progress: the FDA is quietly preparing to let manufacturers adulterate chocolate by replacing cocoa butter with cheap vegetable oil.
This will allow them to cut costs on candy bars and use cocoa butter for more valuable purposes -- thus undermining the quality of the chocolate most people eat and further brutalizing palates.
I did some checking around, figuring I'd find Archer Daniels Midland's paw prints on this ignoble effort. I did.
By its own reckoning, ADM is the the "world's premier producer of cocoa, cocoa butter and chocolate."
An industry trade group called the Grocery Manufacturers of America is leading the lobbying effort. ADM is a member.
The Chocolate Manufacturers Association is also involved -- and ADM is one of only nine members, along with fellow food-processing powerhouse Cargill. The small size of that group is an indication of how consolidated the chocolate market is.
Curiously, the effort to lobby the FDA to weaken chocolate codes has won allies among industrial-meat interest groups. According to the PDF Trina links to, the National Cattlemen's Beef Assn., the National Meat Institute, National Fisheries Institute, the National Meat Canners Association ... all are allying themselves with the movement to adulterate chocolate.
Weird. Are they hoping to get tallow and fish oil into chocolate? Or just being good industry soldiers?
At any rate, it's always important to note that the dominant chocolate makers profit from unsustainable growing practices and even slavery to bring you those one-dollar Snickers bars.
To hell with them. Savor chocolate sparingly -- and buy it from small artisanal producers that give growers a good price. If someone knows of a list of fair-trade chocolate producers, please link to it in comments.
My new favorite chocolate comes from a small U.S. producer called Amano. The bar I had recently, derived from Madagascar beans, had a deep, almost port-wine like flavor that went on forever.
Amano isn't fair-trade certified, but here is how it describes its buying practices:
Since Amano is concerned only with the highest quality cocoa beans, Amano always pays farmers and co-ops significantly more for their product than is set by the "fair trade" organizations. Unfortunately, it costs significant amounts of money for the farmers to become fair-trade certified in addition to it being a long drawn out process. Many farmers simply cannot afford it. At Amano, we believe in paying a premium price for premium cocoa beans. The prices we pay are measured in multiples (i.e., 3-4 times) the London Cocoa Terminal Market price. This not only ensures that we obtain the highest quality beans available but this also ensures that the farmers we work with not only can provide for their families but are encouraged to produce a high quality product and improve their farms. We don't pay the prices we pay to get a label on our box -- we do it because it is the right thing to do.
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Comments
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GreenEngineer Posted 10:06 am
20 Apr 2007
In the meantime, the premium chocolate companies will probably capture more market share, as the difference between their products and the mass produced crap becomes more obvious, and thus the demand for good quality, carefully grown chocolate will increase.
What's the downside here?
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Chris Schults Posted 10:09 am
20 Apr 2007
www.grist.org
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David Roberts Posted 10:19 am
20 Apr 2007
www.grist.org
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David Roberts Posted 10:20 am
20 Apr 2007
www.grist.org
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Mike Breen Posted 12:13 pm
20 Apr 2007
Dedicated to the Art of Chocolate Alchemy: Transforming exceptional cacao into pure chocolate perfection. We practice
Full Circle Sustainability* that blends quality, ecology, equity & community
into everything we do.
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Tom Philpott Posted 12:40 pm
20 Apr 2007
Victual Reality
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typetive Posted 1:22 pm
20 Apr 2007
The curious thing about this docket is that there is an open comment period, but the precise contents of the docket have not been posted on the FDA website for the public to view. (As the originator of the editorial in the LATimes, I tried very hard to get a hold of the text.)
The portion about chocolate has come to light because a member of the CMA has dissented from the organization and passed around the proposed changes while we could still voice our opinion.
The proposal will simply ALLOW manufacturers to use cheaper, substandard ingredients. It won't insist that they do. There are fine chocolate companies that exceed the minimums right now. But you know, once you open the can of worms...
My ultimate suspicion is that this will have less of an impact on our day to day chocolate bars, but more in foods where chocolate is an ingredient, such as baked goods. Mockolate Chip Cookies anyone?
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Liara Covert Posted 1:33 pm
20 Apr 2007
Positive change begins with each of us
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meander Posted 2:17 pm
20 Apr 2007
How often are citizen's petitions like this approved by FDA? Can they approve parts of it and reject other parts?
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Gary Gifford Posted 4:54 pm
20 Apr 2007
Who cares? Is this the what the FDA is spending their time on? For Christ Sake, there are bigger FDA issues in the the world than this. Maybe the FDA has too much time on its hands and should reallocate some personnel to solving some of the serious issues facing the nation and planet.
Cheers,
Gary Gifford
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Jeremy Cherfas Posted 10:24 pm
20 Apr 2007
As for the crappy chocolate, we've had that in the UK for years, to the point where the EU was rumoured to be considering forcing UK chocs to be labelled "chocolate-flavoured vegetable fat" or something equally apocryphal. People who eat crap continue to eat it. As one commenter said, what's the problem?
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typetive Posted 2:44 am
21 Apr 2007
So what they're asking the FDA is to put one over on the consumer. If you read the petition, it says that we've formed no expections. So if we haven't, why don't we buy cheaper quasi chocolate instead?
Fake chocolate is also over-modified. There are too many emulsifiers and different sources for the ingredients. The simpler the product, ultimately the better in most cases. Not only nutritionally, but most people prefer it taste-wise.
I'm not advocating anything more than leave standards the way they are.
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Tom Philpott Posted 3:38 am
21 Apr 2007
Victual Reality
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natureguru Posted 12:35 pm
21 Apr 2007
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Rodney North Posted 1:09 pm
21 Apr 2007
First - Amano was wrong, or at least misleading, when they said "it costs significant amounts of money for the farmers to become fair-trade certified". As a company who imports and sells at least 500,000 pounds of Fair Trade Certified cocoa/chocolate a year we at Equal Exchange can attest that the Fair Trade system delivers real benefits for small-scale farmers. (All told we work with over 30 Fair Trade Certified farmer co-ops in 13 countries, and involving coffee, tea, cocoa, sugar, and rooibos.) While certification does take time (and could admittedly be streamlined) and requires a fee (just as with organic certification, but cheaper) to help cover the costs of the certification process the fee is dwarfed by the higher prices Fair Trade farmer co-ops receive. For example, thanks to the Fair Trade system in just the last 5 years our small company alone has paid farmers $8 million ABOVE the market price for their crops. See in that context the fees are irrelevant.
Second - I thought it amusing to see the posting plugging Dagoba, as they are part of Hershey's. Assuming that the staff at Dagoba want to object to the FDA/Chocolate Manufacturer's effort to dilute the integrity of chocolate I wonder how'll they do it without running afoul of the Hersheys executives. Likewise, I wonder if Scharfenberger (also owned by Hersheys) will speak up on this issue.
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Tom Philpott Posted 1:47 am
22 Apr 2007
To the list including Dagoba and Scharfenberger, once proud chocolate names now owned by transnationals, we can add Green & Black, a venerable organic chocolate maker now owned by Cadbury. I doubt that these brands will ever adulterate with veggie oil, but they can be counted on to get by with minimum possible commitment to quality, sustainability, and labor justice. To hell with them, too.
Can someone post a list of independent fair trade, organic, and/or socially conscious chocolate brands?
Victual Reality
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typetive Posted 2:59 am
22 Apr 2007
Fair Trade chocolate manufacturers available in the US:
Equal Exchange Chocolate - Organic & Fair Trade (made in Switzerland)
Divine Chocolate - Fair Trade (made in the UK)
Endangered Species - some ethically traded products, some organic (made in the US)
Terra Nostra - fair trade and organic (made in Canada & Switzerland)
Theo Chocolate - Fair Trade and organic (made in US)
When picking a chocolate product fair trade is usually best, but when choices are limited organic is also a good choice as it is grown more sustainably and the farmers are paid a premium.
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Rodney North Posted 11:36 pm
22 Apr 2007
Cocoa Camino (a Canadian worker co-op): 100% organic & Fair Trade
Art Bar (by Ithaca Fine Chocolates):organic, Fair Trade
Sweet Earth Organics (made in California): organic, Fair Trade
Shaman Chocolates: some?all? Fair Trade
Omanhene Cocoa Bean Company (made in Ghana)- good people, but I don't know the details.
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GreenEngineer Posted 5:15 pm
23 Apr 2007
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Delay And Deny Posted 1:57 am
24 Apr 2007
Even the safeway now features some great imported chocolate bars from Switzerland, and that's all I buy.
I like to have a bit of nice chocolate after dinner, just a few squares.
Also, if there are kids in the house, it would be much better to give them a good $2 bar of imported chocolate than an artificial American candy bar.
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amc89 Posted 3:37 am
24 Apr 2007
http://www.veganchocolate.com
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radrerun Posted 5:26 am
24 Apr 2007
http://www.transfairusa.org/content/certification/license ...
Scroll down a little over halfways down the page to "Chocolate Licensees"
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dhwert Posted 6:55 am
09 May 2007
Being bought by a transnational corporation may mean going over to the dark side (but I'm not convinced), but what it definitely means is that these businesses are successful. Is that really such a terrible thing? Would we rather have green businesses that are unsuccessful and unprofitable? How would that help, exactly?
This purist attitude strikes me a little like the "greens-eat-their-own" tendency that David Roberts was critiquing recently. I guess your vehement dismissal surprised me.
Full disclosure: I like Dagoba, a relatively local product here in Oregon, and Green & Black's (not local) quite a lot. I also like Divine and Endangered Species.
Dave
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