You are here: Home » Archives for Chocolate
Chocolate - Articles and news items
Issue 4 2011 / 6 September 2011 / Josélio Vieira, Principal Research Scientist, Nestlé Product Technology Centre and Venkata R. Sundara, Group Leader for Aerated and Filled Confectionery, Nestlé Product Technology Centre
Bubble inclusion into chocolate results in a foam in which the gas is dispersed in the continuous fat phase of mainly cocoa butter, which also contains sugar, cocoa and milk powder particles. Aeration allows chocolate products to have a low weight in relation to volume, thereby reducing the calories in a portion (albeit not by weight). It also imparts a unique texture on the final product. A vast array of different aerated chocolate products can be found worldwide (Figure 1).
Aeration of chocolate has been widely used commercially since the patenting of an aerated product in 19351. Since then, several methods to introduce bubbles into chocolate have been developed2. Despite the various methods of including bubbles in chocolate, the science of bubble formation and stabilisation is still poorly understood. (more…)
Issue 2 2011 / 13 May 2011 / Bettina Wolf, Division of Food Sciences, School of Biosciences,
University of Nottingham
Chocolate is a multiphase confectionary product which is consumed as a treat or in-between meals to overcome hunger. The popularity of chocolate is almost certainly due to its unique eating characteristics. It melts in the mouth, imparting a sensation of cooling. The surfaces of the oral cavity are coated by the melted chocolate and flavour is released. The intensity of each of the associated sensory attributes depends largely on the characteristics of the chocolate determined by type and concentration of the ingredients and the manufacturing process. The rheological properties of chocolate in its molten state (short referred to as chocolate in the following) are important to the eating quality and processing of chocolate. (more…)
Issue 2 2011 / 13 May 2011 / Simon Woolford, Jasper Peters & Matt Hogan, Mars
Open innovation has grown as a topic of interest over the last few years – the phrase is broad and ambiguous enough that many people have claimed its importance for doing business in the new millennium, while at the same time drawing very different meanings from the term.
Chesborough coined the phrase ‘open innovation’, but before that, companies started collaborating with partners outside their walls and embarking on technology scouting. Have a look around your own company, whether you have a formal open innovation program or not and there will be people practicing open innovation – they just might not call it that. This is what is so powerful about Chesbrough’s concept – it is big enough to get whole companies motivated behind it, beyond just a skunkworks activity. Timeliness is the other factor behind the success of Chesborough’s concept. Large companies do not have the completeness of research capabilities required to bring genuine innovation to their markets or business problems. Technology has also played its part, with the increasing pace of technological development and the speed at which information is disseminated. So, as there are more external solutions to your business and it becomes easier to connect with them, why wouldn’t you practice open innovation? (more…)
Featured news, News / 19 April 2011 / Royal Duyvis Wiener B.V.
Since the 6th April 2011, Duyvis Wiener is getting a royal treatment. The award has been presented during a special festivity and since then the company name is Royal Duyvis Wiener B.V.
(more…)
Industry news, News / 20 January 2011 / United Biscuits UK
United Biscuits UK, a leading manufacturer of snacks, biscuits, and cakes, is launching a new caramel wafer variant to its popular McVitie’s Penguin range. McVitie’s Penguin Caramel Wafer will be available to retailers from January and will sit alongside the existing Penguin Wafer. (more…)
Industry news / 30 August 2010 / Mars Chocolate
Mars Chocolate is today issuing an industry-wide call to action: for chocolate manufacturers to follow its lead and reduce the saturated fat content of their brands. (more…)
Issue 2 2010 / 12 May 2010 / Dr. Ian Roberts, Director of the Chocolate Centre of Excellence, Nestlé
Cocoa has always held a special status in society. It has evolved from being used to make a beverage featuring at sacrificial ceremonies, travelled via the conquest of the indigenous cultures of Meso-America to the Spanish Royal Court and through high society in France and Italy to find a more peaceful home in the Swiss Alps. It now provides pleasure to millions of consumers across the world on a daily basis.
The secret of the cacao (pronounced kah-KOW) tree was discovered 2,000 years ago in the tropical rainforests of the Americas. The discovery of consuming cocoa is attributed to the Classic Period Maya (250-900 AD). Cocoa was a central component of the culture of Meso-America featuring in Aztec and Mayan ceremonies and royal gatherings. Priests presented cacao seeds as offerings to the gods and served chocolate drinks during sacred ceremonies.
The cocoa was harvested from the trees in the depths of the rainforests (a far cry from the more organised cocoa farms of today), fermented, ground into paste, mixed with chillies and cornmeal and consumed as a bitter, highly spiced, frothy beverage. Today, in Mexico, this chocolate beverage culture continues to thrive, with less use of chillies, but a wide use of cinnamon and some sugar to mask the bitterness in products such as ‘ABUELITA’. The ceremony remains central to the preparation of the product and creates a focal point for the family, with the mother using a specially made wooden ‘molinillo’ (a type of whisk) to make the foam before serving her family. (more…)
Featured news / 12 March 2010 / Watson-Marlow Pumps Group
Watson-Marlow Masosine MR and SPS series positive displacement pumps have been installed at the Fakenham, Norfolk plant of chocolate and confectionary specialist, Kinnerton. The first Masosine pump was introduced to replace a gear pump that was damaging product on an Easter egg production line, with a second model acquired recently to support a newly installed caramel production line. The company has now decided to standardise on Masosine pumps moving forward. (more…)
Issue 4 2009 / 12 December 2009 / Anett Winkler, Corporate Microbiology, Kraft Foods R&D
For many years, low moisture foods, such as chocolate, were regarded as microbiologically safe due to the inherent product characteristics. Water activity levels below 0.6 would prevent any microbial growth, whereas water activities below 0.85 would prevent proliferation of pathogenic / toxin formation by toxigenic microorganisms[1]. A water activity of >0.6 and <0.85 would potentially allow for xerophilic yeasts / moulds growth that are of importance in spoilage of those foods. In addition to the low water activity, other antimicrobial parts of the ingredients had been thought to contribute to the microbiological safety of those products[2].
It was in the early 1970′s when the first outbreaks of Salmonella could be traced back to low moisture products, especially chocolate[3,4]. Since then, several low moisture foods have been implicated in outbreaks: oat cereals[5], flavoured potato chips[6], peanut butter[7], Halva (Tahini)[8] and infant formula[9]. In all cases, Salmonella was the microorganism causing the disease, thus making it the main pathogen of concern for those foods[10]. Further analyses and investigations of the involved foods revealed that in low moisture foods, very minute amounts of living Salmonella seem to be sufficient to cause illnesses. Data from outbreaks suggest the concentration of Salmonella in the implicated foods was as low as 0.005 CFU/g of product[11]. One common property of foods that exhibited this unusually low infective dose was low moisture and high fat where the cells were embedded in a fatty matrix. This combination of properties allowed the Salmonella to pass through the stomach[12] whereby they infected the intestine. In addition to the low infective dose studies showing the survival of pathogens in confectionery products, raw materials demonstrated long term survival, over a period of several months, in these matrixes[13,14]. (more…)
Issue 3 2009 / 10 September 2009 / Frédéric Depypere, Claudia Delbaere, Nathalie De Clercq & Koen Dewettinck, Laboratory of Food Technology and Engineering, Ghent University
The European chocolate manufacturing market, comprising over 2,000 companies and employing more than 200,000 people, has an annual turnover of approximately EUR 43 billion and exports chocolate for a value of more than three billion Euros. Specific for the European market is the large proportion (over 90 per cent) of small and medium sized enterprises (SMEs) which compete against multinationals by producing exclusive and niche oriented products like filled chocolates.
Compared to plain chocolate bars, filled chocolates are more prone to quality problems due to the characteristics of the fillings and the possible incompatibility with the surrounding chocolate shell. Chocolate fat bloom, known as the loss of surface gloss, giving rise to a grey-whitish aspect, can be considered as the number one quality problem in this industry, leading to consumer rejection and a hampering chocolate export. In Figure 1, the occurrence of chocolate fat bloom is illustrated. Another reported quality problem is crack formation and crack propagation. This interruption of the chocolate shell may lead to the undesired spreading out of filling at the surface or even leakage. (more…)
Issue 4 2007 / 16 November 2007 / Dr I.Bodnár, Dr H.Rollema, M.Laats, H.Bernaert, Barry Callebaut, NIZO food research
Chocolate, in its various forms, is the ultimate pleasure food for many customers. New chocolate flavoured products are constantly being developed such as drinks, dairy, ice-cream, and desserts with greater taste and greater convenience.
With its origin in Central America, cocoa was used as a delicacy for centuries before it became known to Europe. One of the famous uses was Xocolatl (meaning bitter water), a drink made out of cocoa beans, herbs and spices. It is where the word “chocolate” is derived from.
In the 16th century cocoa had become very popular in Europe as a drink made with sugar and water. The slow advance in technology, however, limited the growth of the cocoa consumption in comparison to other luxuries, for example, coffee and tea. (more…)
Login to access exclusive content