Less Industrial, More Cacao: Why Flava’Choc Says No to Alkalisation

Alkalisation is common practice in chocolate making. Discover what it changes and why intensive processing can remove almost 90% of cacao’s flavanols.

Most people imagine chocolate production as a simple journey.

Cacao beans are harvested, fermented, dried, roasted, ground and transformed into chocolate.

But inside that journey sits an optional industrial step that can profoundly change the colour, flavour and natural composition of cacao.

It is called alkalisation, also known as Dutch processing.

It is extremely common in cocoa powders, chocolate drinks, biscuits, ice cream and industrial chocolate ingredients. It may also be applied to cacao nibs or cocoa mass before they become a finished chocolate product.

Yet most consumers have no idea it happened.

Where alkalisation enters the chocolate process

The typical journey from cacao pod to chocolate looks roughly like this:

Harvesting → fermentation → drying → roasting → cracking and winnowing → grinding → refining → conching → tempering

Alkalisation is not one fixed step. It can be performed at several moments.

The whole beans may be treated.

The cracked cacao nibs may be treated.

The liquid cocoa mass may be treated.

Or the cocoa press cake may be alkalised before being ground into cocoa powder.

During the process, cacao is mixed with water and an alkaline substance. Time, temperature, pressure and the concentration of the alkaline solution determine how far the transformation goes.

The cacao is then dried and continues through production.

Natural cocoa powder normally has a slightly acidic pH of approximately 5.4 to 5.8. Alkalisation can raise that pH towards neutral or, in heavily Dutch processed cacao, above 8.

That may sound like a small numerical change. Inside the cacao, it is not.

What is added to the cacao?

The most commonly used alkalising agent is potassium carbonate, also known as E501.

Sodium carbonate, E500, is also widely used.

Depending on the desired result, producers may use sodium or potassium bicarbonate, ammonium carbonate, magnesium carbonate or alkaline hydroxides such as sodium hydroxide and potassium hydroxide.

International food standards permit a range of acidity regulators for cocoa processing, including potassium carbonate, sodium carbonate, ammonium carbonate and several food grade hydroxides. View the Codex standard for cocoa powders.

These substances are legally permitted and are not automatically dangerous at authorised levels.

That is not the real criticism of alkalisation.

The important question is not whether potassium carbonate is poisonous.

It is: What happens to the cacao when we use it?

Why does the chocolate industry alkalise cacao?

Alkalisation gives manufacturers several attractive advantages.

• It reduces the natural acidity of cacao.
• It softens bitterness and astringency.
• It creates a smoother, more uniform flavour.
• It improves how cocoa powder disperses in drinks and food preparations.
• Most visibly, it changes the colour.

A naturally light or reddish brown cacao can become dark brown, deep red or almost black. This is how manufacturers create the dramatic colour associated with dark biscuits, chocolate ice cream and intensely coloured cocoa powders.

But darker does not necessarily mean more cacao. It does not necessarily mean stronger cacao. And it certainly does not guarantee more flavanols. Sometimes the darkest cacao has undergone the most intensive alkalisation.

The process also gives manufacturers greater consistency. Beans from different origins, harvests and flavour profiles can be transformed into a more predictable industrial ingredient.

Alkalisation makes cacao easier to control. But to gain that control, part of the original bean may be sacrificed.

What happens to the flavanols?

Cacao flavanols are sensitive to pH, oxygen, temperature and processing time.

When the cacao environment becomes alkaline, flavanols such as epicatechin, catechin and the larger procyanidins can oxidise, transform or degrade.

A study of twenty commercial cocoa powders found a clear relationship between the intensity of alkalisation and the flavanols that remained.

Natural cocoa powders contained an average of 34.6 mg flavanols per gram.

Lightly alkalised powders retained approximately 40 percent of that amount.

Moderately alkalised powders retained around 22 percent.

Heavily alkalised powders retained approximately 11 percent.

In other words, the most heavily processed samples had lost close to 90 percent of the flavanols measured in natural cacao.

The same research found a twentyfold difference between the least and most intensively alkalised cocoa powders, even though both could be described as cocoa processed with alkali. Read the original study.

Alkalisation does not necessarily destroy every flavanol. The effect depends on the agent, temperature, duration and intensity of the process.

But the direction is remarkably consistent:

The more intensive the alkalisation, the less of cacao’s original flavanol profile generally remains.

This is why a percentage such as 70%, 80% or even 100% cacao tells you surprisingly little about flavanol content.

It tells you how much cacao was used. It does not tell you what happened to that cacao before it reached the wrapper.

Is all other chocolate alkalised?

No. Alkalisation is extremely common, particularly in commercial cocoa powder and mass produced products, but not every chocolate outside Flava’Choc is Dutch processed. Some craft and natural chocolate makers also choose non alkalised cacao.

The deeper problem is transparency. Most chocolate packaging focuses on cacao percentage, origin, sugar content and tasting notes. Processing temperatures, degree of roasting and alkalisation are rarely placed at the centre of the story.

Flava’Choc makes those choices visible.

It does not ask you to assume that dark chocolate is rich in flavanols.

It measures them.

Why Flava’Choc leaves alkalisation out

Flava’Choc was created around a different question.

Not:

How can we make cacao darker, milder and more predictable?

But:

How can we preserve what makes the original bean valuable?

The Flava’Choc 100% Unroasted Cacao Bar is made from unroasted, non alkalised Nacional cacao from Ecuador and contains approximately 1,490 mg measured DP1 to DP7 flavanols per 100 grams.

The Flava’Choc 80% Unroasted Cacao Bar uses the same minimally processed cacao, softened only with organic date powder and cacao butter. It provides approximately 790 mg measured flavanols per 100 grams.

The Flava’Choc Raw Cacao Powder is cold pressed from rare Chuncho cacao, never roasted and never alkalised. It contains approximately 2,620 mg measured flavanols per 100 grams.

The Raw Cacao Nibs preserve the same remarkable level of approximately 2,620 mg per 100 grams.

Even the 80% Dark Chocolate Drops, the only lightly roasted product in the collection, remain non alkalised and provide approximately 370 mg flavanols per 100 grams.

This is not simply about avoiding an ingredient.

It is about avoiding an unnecessary transformation.

When chocolate is designed around the bean

Alkalisation edits cacao to meet an industrial expectation. It makes cacao darker, smoother, less acidic, more uniform.

Flava’Choc takes the opposite approach.

Instead of forcing the bean to become what the industry expects chocolate to be, it adjusts the process around what the bean already contains.

The result may be more intense, more complex and less predictable. But it is also closer to the original cacao.

At Farmatuur, this is the difference that matters.

One process asks how cacao can be made easier to control.

The other asks what cacao still has to say when we stop interfering.