Filed under Industry
Fear and Loathing in Chocolateland
There’s a fairly vigorous, if rather one-sided, conversation1 happening on the net about whether chocolate manufacturers should be able to substitute fats other than cocoa butter in chocolate products and still call the result "chocolate." (Say "vegetable oil" in a shocked, hoarse, sotto voce whisper.) Prompted by a big-brother-chocolate petition purportedly suggesting nefarious revisions to the FDA’s chocolate composition guidelines, Burlingame, CA-based Guittard Chocolate Company was upset enough over the perceived threat to stand up a web site urging chocolate consumers to register comments wtih the FDA to fight the proposed regulation changes.
I’m all for truth-in-labeling, and I’m not particularly fond of vegetable oil in chocolate, mostly.2 However, the Guittard site seems a bit strident, and the comments I’ve seen so far have a slight odor of blogmob about them. I was curious about the fuss, so I went down to the FDA document store, did some digging here and there, and found interesting things.
Surprise. It’s all about money.
This debate is an economic one at its heart. Commodity consumer chocolate manufacturers are in a saturated, slowly-growing market, and are trying to increase profitability, both by cost containment and by moving up-market into the higher-margin gourmet chocolate business. Smaller chocolate producers are making inroads educating commodity chocolate consumers about better-tasting (and more expensive) chocolate, and are starting to co-opt commodity consumers by pitching healthier chocolate made with interesting ingredients by interesting people. (Disclosure: we’re one of them there.)
The FDA has guidelines3 requiring cocoa butter to be present in a food product to call it "chocolate." Cocoa butter is the most expensive ingredient in chocolate. An economic holy grail for high-volume chocolate producers is finding a way to minimize the amount of cocoa butter in products, without perceptibly altering the taste and mouth-feel expected by people buying their product. If a manufacturer could substitute a cheaper fat or combination of fats that taste right and have the same melting and manufacturing characteristics as cocoa butter, the difference in cost could go right to their bottom line. There are a lot of possibilities for substitutes, and some come close to those goals.4
From the small-chocolate-producer perspective, big chocolate already has a pretty mean economic scale advantage. If the conglomerates could shave sheckels off the production budget while creating products marketable as fancy chocolate, that might be scary. And, even worse, if they could create a fat mix that tastes as good as the real thing while being dirt cheap to produce, there might be challenges ahead for both small manufacturers and cacao farmers.5
Don’t believe everything you read.
The current tsuris6 over adulterated chocolate points back to a citizen’s petition7 to the FDA by the Grocery Manufacturer’s Association of America. The Chocolate Manufacturer’s Association was one signatory to the petition, along with the GMA and ten other industry lobbying groups.8 The petition is couched as an overall proposal to "modernize food standards" to allow industry to innovate food products faster, and to allow more flexibility in product composition in light of more rapid ingredient and technology development. It’s a request to add a general or "horizontal" regulation allowing modifications to standardized, FDA-defined foods (like chocolate) for "legitimate" reasons. It explicitly states the proposal would not "replace or undermine existing policies or requirements." The writers of the proposal even seem to tiptoe a bit around exactly the type of landmines planted in the chocolate adulteration issue:
…the petitioners appreciate that the agencies may wish to exclude certain ingredients or technologies that, due to sharply opposing views from stakeholder groups, have been controversial.
The word "chocolate" doesn’t appear in the document, except in the name of the Chocolate Manufacturers Association. "Vegetable oil" makes one brief cameo appearance as "ingredients cannot be replaced with ingredients from another source (e.g., vegetable oil cannot replace milkfat in sour cream)" when discussing the need for mandatory ingredients to remain present in "enhanced foods." There is an interesting request to back away from "*Ingredients not in regular ________." labeling with this justification:
Consumers have grown accustomed to innovation in the food industry and reasonably expect that the most useful ingredients will be used in any food product, standardized or not.
And, lest we be too quick to blame this document exclusively on the treachery of big business9 it appears this petition is a response to an earlier FDA proposal10 to streamline the process of writing food standards, in which the FDA writers conclude the only way to stay within their regulatory budget is to invite consumers and food manufacturers to propose food standards.
The fifth option the [FDA/FSIS] Work Group considered was to rely on external groups-consumer, industry, commodity, or other groups-to draft recommended revisions to existing Federal food standards but retain the agencies’ authority to establish the final food standards. … One major advantage of this option is that it would require the use of fewer of our agencies’ resources than would be required if we were to review and propose amendments to the food standards without the benefit of petitions. … The disadvantage to this fifth option is that, if a consumer, industry, or commodity group does not feel strongly about revising a particular group of food standards, we might not receive a petition and would then need to commit resources to reviewing the food standards without the benefit of a petition. … we have tentatively determined that the fifth option is the most appropriate course of action. The Work Group preliminarily determined that we could rely on external groups to suggest new food standards, revisions to existing food standards, or elimination of certain food standards that are consistent with the proposed general principles.
The nasty chocolate manufacturers, co-signers of the ultimate missive, didn’t even have to connive at forcing the opportunity for their perfidy.
Door open. Cow gone.
This is a fun debate to watch, if only for the realization that it’s about perception more than reality.
Chocolate in America is a big business. We buy lots of chocolate from Hershey, Nestle Cadbury and Masterfoods because we like it. We’ve grown up on their tastes and products. Good chocolate or bad, it’s comfort food to a staggering number of consumers. If we didn’t buy it, they wouldn’t make it. If you dig down into the development and manufacturing of chocolate products, you’ll find many examples of recipe and process manipulation and innovation for economic ends, both by big businesses and small.
- One of our equipment suppliers, probably the premier manufacturer of equipment for the chocolate industry, told me recently they derate the capacity of their machines for one of the big chocolate manufacturers by something like 20%. The chocolate that’s pushed through the machines is so starved for cocoa butter that it dramatically slows the processing, and makes the machines wear out faster. American manufacturers are already exercising fat content in chocolate, either by reducing cocoa butter and pumping up cocoa powder, or by including butter oil and milk fat, allowed under the milk and other adulterant limits already set by the FDA. Even with the current FDA guidelines, the gap between what we consider premium and commodity chocolates is widening.
- The naming of chocolate items is already fuzzier than we realize. For instance, in a guidance note to the chocolate industry in 198811 the FDA suggests that if consumers expect something to be called chocolate, you can call it chocolate, despite its composition:
We believe that any other nonstandardized food product that contains cocoa as the chocolate flavoring ingredient may bear the term "chocolate" so long as it can be demonstrated that consumers have long recognized that the food product may be made from cocoa and do not expect it to contain some other chocolate ingredient.
- The EC already allows vegetable fat in European chocolate, clearly labeled. The rules12 allow up to 5% of Illipe, Palm-oil, Sal, Shea, Kokum gurgi or Mango kernel oil to be included in chocolate.
In short, your chocolate has already been messed with, and your perceptions of what’s the "right" way to do chocolate are already the result of years of messin’ with it.
Standards games.
I’ve spent a chunk of my adult life sitting on standards committees for various high-tech pursuits. The politics are very similar to those played in the food standards arena, except the food folks have a lot more history behind them, and should, I suspect, be able to hide their politics better. From a corporate perspective, the aim of standards is a tactical one. The cynical (but often all too accurate) goal of a standardization chess match is to change a standard to reflect the fruits of your product development efforts, while manipulating the adopted rules to invalidate your competitors’ R&D investment, forcing them to play catch-up. Failing that, you play a waiting game, placing loopholes and hooks into the language you might be able to exercise later. And, throughout the game play, if you’re good at it, you co-opt others to help with the heavy lifting, so you’re perceived as building consensus rather than throwing self-serving rocks.
Now, remember the language I quoted above about "controversial" areas the FDA might want to avoid because of “sharply opposing views from stakeholder groups?” Guittard is one of only nine member companies of the Chocolate Manufacturers Association.13 To see one of this short list of corporate members stirring up consumers against their own association in this fashion might seem peculiar. The comments they’re encouraging people to post don’t seem speak to the substantive content of the rule changes. If I were in a cynical mood, I’d suspect them of trying to co-opt bloggers into helping make sure the FDA bookmarks the chocolate rules as one of those "controversial" places. And maybe they’ll succeed?
- Samples here, here and here. [up]
- Our family does have a peculiar fondness for Reese’s peanut butter cups when they’re on sale at three for a buck, but those don’t have any vegetable oil in them. Sugar, cocoa butter, chocolate, nonfat milk, milk fat lactose, soy lecithin, PGPR, peanuts, sugar, dextrose, salt and TBHQ. The milk in the FDA milk chocolate requirement is introduced as nonfat milk (dried?) milk fat and lactose, both to help control fat and sugar content more precisely, and to allow skewing the fat and sugar ratios as needed. 31% fat, including the peanuts. [up]
- CFR Title 21, section 163 spells out sweet, white, milk, buttermilk and skim milk chocolate, none containing any fat other than cocoa butter. As soon as you add vegetable oil to chocolate, the product nominally must be called “sweet (or milk) chocolate and vegetable fat coating.” [up]
- Here’s the technical bible on confectionery fats, from none other than The Oily Press. Dense reading, good for bedtime, and unless you have a decent budget for your lipid fetish, get it from inter-library loan. [up]
- Think natural rubber plantations, synthetic rubber tires, Goodyear, 1937. [up]
- TSOOR-iss - Troubles, problems, woes. What constitutes tsuris depends on a person’s tolerance level. The range can encompass everything from a leaky faucet in your kitchen to a malfunction in your space capsule. "Houston, we have tsuris."
—from Yiddish With Dick and Jane, by Ellis Weiner and Brabar Davilman; Little, Brown & Company, 2004, p103.
Or perhaps tsimmes is more appropriate? :-) [up] - FDA Docket 2007P-0085, October 27, 2006, Adopt Regulations of General Applicability to all Food Standards that would Permit, within Stated Boundaries, Deviations from the Requirements of the Individual Food Standards of Identity [up]
- The complete list: The American Frozen Food Institute, The American Meat Institute, The Food Products Association, Grocery Manufacturers Association, International Dairy Foods Association, Juice Products Association, National Cattlemen’s Beef Association, National Fisheries Institue, National Meat Canners Association, North American Millers’ Association and the Snack Food Association. All these folks trying to change your chocolate? Not. [up]
- Big corporations need to be collared! [up]
- 70 FR 29214-29235 Food Standards; General Principles and Food Standards Modernization [up]
- FDA Compliance Policy Guide CPG 7105.15, May 13, 1988 [up]
- Directive 2000/36/EC, see the last page. [up]
- ADM Cocoa, Barry Callebaut USA, LLC, Blommer Chocolate Company, Cargill Cocoa and Chocolate, Guittard Chocolate Company, Hershey Company, Masterfoods USA, a Mars, Incorporated Company, Nestlé Chocolate & Confections, and World’s Finest Chocolate, Inc., as listed in the association’s letter to its stakeholders about this issue. [up]
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