Posted 27/11/2023

At Source Certain, we are committed to promoting transparency and traceability in the chocolate industry.

To achieve this, we conducted extensive testing on 385 chocolate bars which contained cocoa from Belize, Bolivia, Cameroon, Colombia, Côte d’Ivoire, and many more.

The objective of our investigation was to assess if dark chocolate from different chocolate manufacturers had similar trace element composition to each other. We discovered that it is possible to verify the country of harvest of cocoa in bars of dark chocolate using trace element analysis.

Other techniques can struggle with this due to the influence of additional ingredients. However, to take the verification process a step further and ascertain cocoa back to the specific region or farm, it becomes essential to test the cocoa beans before they undergo processing into chocolate. This is because skilled chocolatiers often blend beans from multiple sources to bring out the best characteristics in the final chocolate product.

Our classification accuracy stood at an impressive 99.6% for verifying the country of origin.

Prominent organisations like Be Slavery Free have developed a Chocolate Scorecard, which ranks companies based on their ethical sourcing of cocoa.

Their commendable efforts aim to combat exploitation and modern slavery, ensuring that cocoa farmers receive fair compensation for their labor.

If you are considering controlling the origin of your cocoa for the EUDR or simply want to contribute to a more ethical and transparent chocolate supply chain, reach out to Source Certain.

Contact our team