What can you do to ensure that premium chocolate is worth the money? Many people love the taste of rich and premium chocolate. However, even those with the best tastebuds can’t tell if it’s made from 100% premium cacao beans. Researchers from the US Department of Agriculture and Nanking Agricultural University, China and the University of the West Indies, Trinidad & Tobago report that they now have a method of authenticating the origin and purity of chocolate beans. Dapeng Zhang and his team, Ph.D., point out that lower quality cacao beans often get mixed with high-quality ones during chocolate bar, sauce, and liqueur production. They add that the stakes of policing chocolate are very high. Chocolate is an enormous, multi-billion-dollar industry. It is often seen in certain sectors as an art form, just like the wine business. The industry’s distribution and retail departments, as well as a rising number of customers, are more concerned about whether chocolates really are what they claim to be. Farmers would benefit from being able to quickly authenticate rare and premium cacao beans. This could encourage them to preserve cacao biodiversity rather than rely on easy-to grow plants. Researchers have discovered ways to verify the authenticity of many other crops such as coffee, tea and olives. These methods do not work for cacao beans. Zhang and his colleagues decided to tackle this problem. To authenticate premium cacao beans, we needed to find DNA markers. The researchers used the most recent developments in cacao genomics to discover a few DNA markers called single nucleotide Polymorphisms (SNPs). Each cacao variety has its unique SNP (pronounced “snips”) This technique works on one cacao bean and can easily be scaled to handle large quantities of samples quickly. According to the authors, “This is the first authentication study of cacao with molecular markers”. The scientists wrote in an abstract in the journal: “The nanofluidic SNP protocol is sufficient robust to establish authenticity and verify gourmet chocolate varieties. This technique has significant practical potential.” Funding for the study came from the US Department of Agriculture and the Agricultural Research Service. The World Cocoa Foundation also gave Lindt and Sprungli a financial gift.
How can I tell if premium chocolate is truly high-quality?
