When chocolate isn’t chocolate anymore...
Somewhere in the hubris surrounding the Kaun Banega Crorepati (KBC) circus, is a small sub-episode, played out for a short while onscreen—but extremely important all the same. It involves the handing over of a basket full of Cadbury products, important because it is not just one of the bigger sponsors, but also because at no stage does the venerable Amitabh Bachchan say anything about them being chocolates or even mentioning the brand. The real reason is not shrouded in mystery but like a bad smell it is simply ignored.
Palm oil-based product which was now transported in bulk and is being used in lieu of cocoa butter—the main ingredient for most brands of chocolates and chocolate derivatives sold commercially
In some developed countries, it is now a pre-requisite that what is not chocolate is not sold as chocolate. By and large, local variations aside, if it did not have at least 30% by way of cacao, chocolate, cocoa butter or solids, then it could not be called ‘chocolate’. Certain products, like ice-creams claiming to be chocolate or using related words, needed to have a “this is not chocolate” cautionary on the wrappers too.
Cadbury Oreo, for example, uses the term ‘chocolatey’. What does that mean? If you look closely at the wrapper, you will see that it means that the ‘creme’ part contains refined sugar, vegetable fat and emulsifier. The ‘biscuit’ part, however, does claim to have some cocoa solids—though not enough for even the manufacturers to tell us how much.
Moving on, we take a closer look at the flagship brand from Cadbury, called ‘Dairy Milk’. Gets interesting, because the Rs5 and Rs10 packets containing slabs or éclairs don’t even claim to be chocolates, or have any in them. These are, simply, refined sugar in vegetable fat. But the packaging, font, colours used—even the glasses of white liquid shown that could be milk being poured into the ‘I’ are the same—as with the costlier ‘Dairy Milk’ bar which cost Rs25-Rs30 and more—and have “rich classic milk chocolate” written on them.
Coming up next is something called Galaxy Smooth Milk, manufactured in Dubai, exported and imported by Mars in India—and over-printed with the line “smooth and creamy milk chocolate”, as well as with a strategically placed sticker placed over the ingredients part. This sticker says “no vegetable fat in chocolate”, but when you peel the sticker away carefully, you learn that the non-chocolate part of this product does contain—vegetable oils.
Nestlé’s packaging appears to have their own strategies too. KitKat says that it has crisp wafer fingers covered with ‘chocolayer’. The milk chocolate bar says that they are Swiss chocolate makers since 1904, but the ingredients take you through the usual storyline of going coy about its ingredients—‘nature identical’. Best, of course, is their Milky Bar, sold in the same chocolate shelves—it gives up, doesn’t even claim to have any chocolate in it, and goes into partially hydrogenated vegetable oils. Of course, the fonts used and the labelling are deceptively similar to their chocolates, but then, that’s par for the course.
The ‘chewy’ chocolate bars, they have their own stories—5-Star by Cadbury is “yummy chocolaty”, Bar-One by Nestle is “delicious chocolayer” and Snickers by Mars is “covered in chocolate”. But all of them, without exception, have their share of vegetable fats and oils. Of course, that’s never part of the advertising or marketing strategy.
So when and how did cocoa butter morph into something that came out of palm oil? Here’s one of the articles on the subject.
http://www.waset.org/journals/waset/v54/v54-95.pdf
The chemically re-formulated palm oil is just one step away in the world of chemistry from being converted into a form of industrial plastic.
(*Veeresh Malik 23nov11)
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