A simple test of volatile compounds in chocolate may serve as chemical tracers to enable better traceability of cocoa and inform consumers of the countries of origin, say French researchers.

Aided by the high fat content of chocolate, which traps all but the most volatile of compounds, researchers from the Laboratoire de Chimie Analytique et Sciences de l'Aliment (IPHC-UMR 7178) in Illkirch report that identification of seven compounds that can be used as chemical tracers.

The method described in this work (hydrodistillation, GC analysis, and statistic treatment) may improve the control of the geographical origin ofchocolateduring its long production process,wrote the researchers, led by Christophe Marcic.

The analytical technique is said to integrate the entire production process for chocolate from bean to processing to final product and distinguishes between chocolate originating from the Caribbean, Madagascar, Africa, and South America.
Consumers have no way of tracing the origin of the cocoa used to produce their chocolate to a particular country, much less a particular site of agricultural production, explained the researchers.

To determine the quality of chocolate and the veracity of labelling, consumers need to be informed of the cocoa production sites country, even more with the rising market of healthy chocolate, they added.

The analysis of the volatile content and their statistical processing by multivariate analyses tended to form independent groups for both Africa and Madagascar, even if some of the chocolate samples analyzed appeared in a mixed zone together with those from America, wrote the researchers.
This analysis also allowed a clear separation between Caribbean chocolates and those from other origins.

The French researchers identified seven compounds, which they proposed as tracers, including linalool and (E,E)-2,4-decadienal), for complete characterisation of the chocolate's geographical origin.

Source:Journal of Agricultural and Food Chemistry2010, Volume 58, Issue 3, Pages 14781483, doi: 10.1021/jf903471eDifferentiation of Chocolates According to the Cocoas Geographical Origin Using ChemometricsAuthors: A. Cambrai, C. Marcic, S. Morville, P. Sau Houer, F. Bindler, E. Marchioni


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clay - http://www.thechocolatelife.com/clay/

updated by @clay: 04/21/15 13:26:52

This is easily the nerdiest view of chocolate I have personally come across, and the nerd in me (easily 3/4 or better) is quite interested.This makes me wonder - do these compounds define much of the flavor that we would normally associate from the terroir? Also, do you think this could lead to synthesizing realistic fine chocolate?Further, has there been any research to discover the chemical nature of the production process as it relates to flavor and aroma? For example, ferment and roast both lend much to the final flavor profiles of Domori and Pralus chocolates, respectively. I wonder whether there has been any research into what chemicals come from these processes that yield such distinct products.Over all, this was very interesting.

Similar techniques have been in use with coffee for some time, and they do help discipline the marketplace by providing third-party confirmation of origin. In the case of coffee I know they're able to get very discreet data (even down to identifying an individual farm's chemical signature), so it'll be interesting to see how this methodology gets applied to cacao and chocolate.

...and to see how much people can modify the flavor or chemical profile of beans from one origin X with fermenting microbes from another region Y to see how close they can get both profiles closer to those of region Y.