Do you know the ingredients in a chocolate bar? Knowing how to read the chocolate label will help you make healthier choices about your food. Nutrition labels can be confusing, but they don’t have to be if you know what to look for.
The main ingredient in a chocolate bar is, of course, chocolate. Craft chocolate makers use just two or three ingredients in chocolate bars. Two-ingredient chocolate bars consist of cacao and cane sugar, and three-ingredient chocolate bars include cacao, cane sugar and cocoa butter.
To make chocolate, cacao beans are harvested, processed and ground into chocolate liquor (which is liquid chocolate). Cocoa butter is the fat that is extracted from roasted cacao beans, and it gives chocolate bars a smooth, creamy texture.
The US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has strict standards for the chocolate ingredients label. They have specific regulations for each category, such as milk chocolate or white chocolate (the main ingredient of white chocolate is cocoa butter—read more about it below).
To be labeled as milk chocolate, the chocolate bar must contain at least 10 percent chocolate liquor, at least 12 percent milk solids, and at least 3.39 percent milkfat.
For a product to be labeled as white chocolate, it has to contain a minimum of 20 percent cocoa butter, at least 14 percent total milk solids, and at least 3.5 percent milkfat. White chocolate is made with cocoa butter instead of solid cacao mass. According to the FDA’s standards, white chocolate cannot contain more than 55 percent nutritive sweetener such as agave, high-fructose corn syrup, fructose, sucrose, honey or table sugar. Nutritive sweetener adds calories but contains few, if any, vitamins and minerals.
Interestingly enough, the FDA doesn’t have a specific standard for labeling dark chocolate. Instead, it falls under the “nonstandardized” food category. The lack of a clear, standardized policy can make it difficult for chocolate makers to know what to put on their labels and for consumers to know what to look for when reading the label. The FDA does list some of the ingredients that should be found in dark chocolate, such as cacao and cacao nibs, so look for those ingredients on your dark chocolate bar label.
Commercial chocolate bar ingredients often include cacao, cane sugar, cocoa butter, soy lecithin, vegetable oil, and vanilla (or a vanilla substitute). If a chocolate ingredient list includes vegetable oil, artificial sweeteners, or milk substitutes, the product will be labeled as “chocolatey” or “made with chocolate” because it is not considered actual chocolate. Rest assured, if you buy a dark chocolate bar from us at Cococlectic, none of those ingredients are in the bar because our craft chocolate makers use only three ingredients; cacao bean, sugar, cocoa butter.
Some of the additional labels you might see on a chocolate bar and their definitions include the following:
- Fair Trade: When a company uses the Fair Trade label, they must meet certain criteria, including offering a fair price to farmers and seeking a direct trade route to improve conditions for farmers.
- Organic: To maintain an organic food status, chocolate must meet certain guidelines that include restrictions on pesticides and fertilizers and promoting ecological balance.
- Non-GMO: A GMO (or genetically modified organism) has been modified or engineered in a lab. This results in organisms which do not occur in nature.
- Bean-to-bar: Also known as craft chocolate makers, these chocolate manufacturers are involved in every part of the chocolate-making process, from harvesting to fermenting to roasting to grinding. This results in a higher-quality chocolate and better working conditions for the farmers.
- Tree-to-bar: Tree-to-bar chocolate is similar to bean-to-bar, but the manufacturers grow their own Theobroma (cacao) trees so they can control the entire chocolate-making process.
- Single origin: Single origin chocolates are made from cacao beans found in a single growing region.
To capture our attention, chocolate bar labels often include impressive color combinations. As any marketing expert will tell you, we’re influenced by labels, trade certifications and packaging, so it’s important to know what each designation means. The chocolate ingredient list is one of the first things we look at when deciding what chocolate bar to purchase. Many small-batch chocolate bars feature fair trade, organic, and non-GMO certifications; the cacao’s origin; the cocoa percentage; and the ingredients on their chocolate bar labels.
When considering the ingredients in chocolate bars, keep in mind that a solid chocolate bar will contain some combination of cocoa solids, cocoa butter, sugar, and milk (for milk chocolate). A high-quality chocolate bar should have no more than four ingredients. Milk or milk products should not be present in dark chocolate unless it is labeled “dark milk chocolate.”
Chocolate bar ingredients are listed from the highest to lowest percentage of the ingredients found in the chocolate bar. The first item listed is always the main ingredient because the product contains more of that item than any of the others. For dark chocolate, the main ingredient should always be cacao mass. Milk and white chocolate often list sugar as the main ingredient.
High-quality dark chocolate has a high cocoa content. Because it does not contain milk, it has a rich brown color. The sugar content varies, resulting in a semi-sweet, sweet or bitter flavor, depending on the amount of sugar included. Percentages on dark chocolate labels can range from 30 percent to 100 percent. These percentages indicate the amount of cocoa. The higher the cocoa percentage, the less sugar the chocolate bar contains. A 100 percent dark chocolate bar contains no sugar at all.
Dark chocolate is well known for its health benefits and high antioxidant content. When purchasing dark chocolate, look for labels with 70 percent or higher cocoa content—these provide the most health benefits.
At Cococlectic, we feature a different American small-batch bean-to-bar chocolate maker each month. These chocolate makers are passionate about their products and create their chocolate bars from scratch using only three main ingredients: cacao beans, sugar and cocoa butter.
Our featured chocolates are vegan, non-GMO, fair-trade and ethically sourced. They do not contain any soy, gluten, dairy or nut, but they may be produced in a facility that handles these ingredients.
Sign up for a chocolate-of-the-month subscription club and join us for a free virtual chocolate tasting with our featured chocolate maker of the month.