Chocolates, chocolate fondants and coating mass contain variable quantities of sugar and fat; accordingly no limits can be assigned to the ash contents of these preparations.
A unanimity of opinion as to the least possible amount of cacao for the chemical estimation of chocolate has become an urgent necessity. Hereby it should be established that in good chocolate the fatty contents, apart from the sugar,[221] exceed a definite percentage.[222] A minimum percentage of 35% of cacao mass in chocolate destined for export, which must possibly be covered, has been fixed by the council of commerce.
As percentage of chocolate in cacao the double quantity of non-fatty cacao material must be taken, on the supposition that raw cacao contains on an average 50% of fat.
c) Laws and Enactments as to Trade in Cacao Preparations.
So far traffic in cacao has only been brought under legal control in three European countries, namely Belgium, Roumania, and Switzerland. We annex in the following pages a resumé of the legal prescriptions appertaining thereto, as being of especial importance to exporting manufacturers.
1 Belgium.
The Belgian royal decree of the 18th November 1894 established on the basis of the law for articles of consumption, August 4th 1890, and article 454 to 457, 500 to 503, and 561 of the penal code book runs (according to the “Moniteur Belge” of the 3rd and 4th December, 1894, as follows:
Art. 1. It is illegal to sell, expose or hold in possession for sale, or to transmit, any other product as “all cocoa” than the fruit of the cacao tree, raw and prepared by roasting, hulling and grinding with or without addition of spices, and finally moulded into tablets or reduced to powder form.
It is permissible to sell, expose or have in possession for sale, or to transmit such cacao as has suffered a loss of butter by expressing, provided that the amount of this ingredient is not diminished by more than 20 % of the whole, under the designation “cocoa or cocoa powder”; and again under the designation “alkalinised cacao” (cacao alcalinisé) such as has had its alkali content increased in special treatment by not more than 3% of the total weight. The declaration “alkalinised” is not, if a matter of mere possession or transmittance in export, to be considered as necessary.
Cacao which has been prepared other than as above described may only be sold, exposed or held in possession for sale, or transmitted, under a special label which declares this special manner of preparation next to the word “cacao” or under a label that does not contain the word “cacao” at all.