Is your Cocoa Butter pure?

Is Your Cocoa Butter Pure?

Adulteration of products is destroying good manufacturing, when it is done by market players for deceiption and profit. In this article we discuss why identifying a pure cocoa butter as an input product is essential for retaining good product appeal for your own business, as well as authentic products for business legacy.

Cocoa butter is a thin yellow, off-white vegetable fat, obtained from cocoa beans. At extraction, the butter presents as either a brown or light brown oil, which upon solifying, hardens into an off-white block. The purest cocoa butter presents a distinct authentic signature chcocolate aroma.

What affects the purity of cocoa butter

Many factors can affect the purity of cocoa butter. The process to extract butter starts with getting the fermented or even un-fermented beans cleaned of any foreign matter and effluent. The bean are a brown to deep brown color, resulting from the fermented mucilage around the beans.

The cleaned beans are roasted at 125 – 150 degrees celcius, for a maximum of 45 minutes, to suit the aroma profile desired. This process drives out anyresidual water in the bean, crusts the outer shell of the bean, and also hardens the protein starch. It is necessary, therefore, before expressing the butter or fat from the roasted beans, to remove as much of the crusted shell, as possible.

The residual crust pieces are an organic and acceptable source of pigmentation to the cocoa butter. Overall, 30-45% butter is obtained from roasted beans.

However, producers who are persuaded to increase the volume of butter for higher profits engage in adverse practices. This pushes them to identify near similar butters, both organic or inorganic, which they add to the yield of cocoa butter to increase volumes.

There are some types of fats and oils used to replace or dilute cocoa butter, often to reduce costs. They are termed Cocoa Butter Equivalents (CBEs) or Substitutes (CBSs) and include Oils from Coconut, palm, soybean, rapeseed, cottonseed. Other Fats used are Shea butter, mango kernel fat, and mixtures of mango kernel fat and palm oil. 

In addition, an emulsifier derived from castor beans, called polyglycerol polyricinoleate. This works for some producers to improve the characteristics of cocoa butter.

Get pure Cocoa Butter here

Our commitment is to bring to you authentic and ethically produced cocoa butter. We commit to the same for cocoa powder, as well other products. We participate in robust product certification programs using etablished local labs. Our factory issued Safety Data Sheet highlights the product characteristics as well as safety considerations.

Quality starts with your supplier. Only pay for what you can trust. Buy Cocoa Butter made by Aadrea Essential Oils.