Articles

By Rabbi Dovid Cohen, Administrative Rabbinic Coordinator

Q. What can you tell me about how chocolate is made?

A. The production of chocolate involves lots of skill and experience.  Cocoa beans are roasted, ground into “cocoa liquor” (which is not alcoholic), and the cocoa liquor is then pressed so that it separates into “cocoa butter” (which is not dairy) and cocoa powder.  Until this point of the process, there are no kashrus issues for year-round or Pesach.  However, things become a bit more complicated after this point.

Cocoa butter is very expensive and desirable, and it is what gives chocolate bars their creamy taste.  Accordingly, one must be certain that unscrupulous operators do not adulterate the cocoa butter with other oils or fats, which are cheaper.  Similarly, in some countries it is legal to add a certain amount of “glucose” (a form of sugar) to cocoa powder without necessarily declaring it on the ingredient panel. This poses a Pesach concern, since glucose can be sourced from wheat (or corn).

A chocolate confection made with just these ingredients would not be so tasty, and, therefore, these base ingredients are commonly mixed with sugar, milk, and other additives to produce the chocolate that we all love to eat and bake with.  Those other ingredients may be kosher-sensitive, and this potentially affects all items made in the chocolate company (even those which are free of those ingredients) if they share equipment with the non-kosher items.  [A late step in producing quality chocolate is to place it in a “conch” where it is slowly stirred at warm/hot temperatures for extended amounts of time.]

The previous paragraphs consider what it takes to produce chocolate at the chocolate factory.  From there, the chocolate is sent to manufacturers who will add their own ingredients and use the chocolate in a whole slew of other items.  Of course, those uses raise their own kashrus issues.

The original use of chocolate in Western countries was as a hot beverage, and it was generally assumed that in that form the bracha recited on it is shehakol.  However, when people began eating it (rather than just drinking it), questions were raised as to whether that bracha remained accurate.  This is because the general rule is that if the common use for a specific type of produce is in the ground/pureed form, the bracha on it is ha’eitz (or ha’adamah), rather than shehakol,which is usually recited on pureed foods.  Nowadays, cocoa beans are grown primarily for eating after they are pureed (e.g., chocolate bars), and, therefore, logically the bracha should be ha’eitz.  Some have proposed reasons why this is inaccurate, but many, including Rav Shlomo Zalman Auerbach and others, believed that the “right” bracha should be ha’eitz , but, nonetheless, acknowledged that the common custom is to recite shehakol.

This article first appeared in the Let’s Talk Kashrus column, Yated Ne’eman, April 25, 2025.