Palm oil-free chocolate

What is palm oil?

Palm oil or palm fat is obtained from the oil palm. This is mainly grown in Southeast Asia. Indonesia and Malaysia produce the most. Palm oil is the most produced vegetable oil in the world.

Why is palm oil used at all?

Palm oil is mainly used in industrial products that need to be spreadable and taste creamier. These can be chocolate creams, for example, or chocolates that are supposed to have a delicate melt when the quality of the cocoa used is not so good. In chocolate, palm oil is also used for fillings and often as a substitute for cocoa butter. Unlike other vegetable fats, palm fat, like cocoa butter, is solid at room temperature.

In the confectionery industry, special attention is paid to money, because the customer wants to buy chocolate cheaply and is focused on the price of chocolate. One way to do this is: to squeeze the good cocoa butter out of the cocoa bean and sell it to the cosmetics industry, e.g. for lipsticks or lip balms. There, a lot of money is paid for the cocoa butter. However, since cocoa needs fat for chocolate, the squeezed expensive cocoa butter is replaced by cheap palm fat. This is another reason why customers can buy cheap chocolate in the supermarket. Unlike in Europe, in the United States it is even forbidden to use palm oil in chocolate. If it is used, the product is no longer allowed to call itself chocolate.

Can palm oil be avoided in chocolate products?

Since cocoa is naturally palm oil-free, the same is true for chocolates. Craft chocolate / fine chocolates therefore explicitly avoid it. They get the delicate melting through the careful preparation and selection of the best raw materials.

Whether chocolate contains palm oil or not can always be seen on the list of ingredients, which must clearly show palm oil/palm fat/palm kernel oil.

In principle, chocolate does well without palm oil and is not necessary at all.