Bloomin' Chocolate Hell! The common issue for chocolate manufactures...

Do you manufacture chocolate? Are you aware that the ever so common issue of chocolate bloom is putting doubt in the consumer's mind about whether or not the chocolate is safe to eat? Nestle supported research into chocolate bloom as they found that whilst this is a common issue, some of the main consequences resulted in customer complaints and sale losses. What causes chocolate bloom? Amano’s (specialists in Artisan chocolate) page on their website; Sugar and Fat Bloom explains their are two types of chocolate bloom, fat bloom and sugar bloom. They explain that because of blooming, it is not uncommon for chocolate to sometimes appear as if it has spoiled, covered in white or light brown colour splotches. Sugar blooming is the process of when the chocolate comes into contact with water, dissolves the sugar on the surface of the chocolate and then as the water dries, the dissolved sugar crystallises and precipitates onto the surface of the chocolate. The sugar crystals give the chocolate a dusty appearance. Fat blooming is the process of when white specks appear on the surface of the chocolate and this is because of fat crystallisation. The white specks are edible, however, this process does change the appearance of the chocolate and can put some people off. Unlike sugar bloom, fat bloom is not always caused by a simple set of circumstances and is a lot more complicated meaning it can be hard to actually know the source of the problem. The most common cause of chocolate bloom Majority of experts say that fat bloom is the most common type of bloom and even though this type can be caused for a number of different reasons, many believe the main culprit to be because the chocolate has not been stored properly e.g. being exposed to high temperatures and therefore allowed to reset. Blooming marvelous… We love a good experiment... Most of the VeriVide team wolfed down all of their Easter eggs, however, one willing volunteer got far too many this year and so donated one of theirs to be experimented on. We wanted to run an experiment to see how important storage was and if indeed this was a culprit for causing chocolate to bloom. We decided to half the egg and keep one half in a constant appropriate temperature, whereas, the other half we exposed to the elements! Well...maybe that’s a little dramatic…

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