Background On Where Chocolate Comes From & How It’s Made
Cacao (kekä´o, -ka´-) , tropical tree ( Theobroma cacao ) of the family Sterculiaceae ( sterculia family), native to South America, where it was first domesticated and was highly prized by the Aztecs. It has been extensively cultivated in the Old World since the Spanish conquest. The fruit is a pod containing a sweetish pulp in which are embedded rows of seeds, the cocoa “beans” of commerce. To obtain cocoa, the harvested pods are fermented by naturally occurring bacteria and yeasts to eliminate their bitter, astringent quality. The seeds are then cured and roasted. The clean kernels, called cocoa nibs, are manufactured into various products. Their large percentage of fat, removed by pressure, is the so-called cocoa butter used in fine soaps and cosmetics and in medicine for emollients and suppositories; the residue is ground to a powder (cocoa) and used for beverages and flavouring. Chocolate is a product in which the cocoa butter has been retained. Cacao products have a high food value because of the large proportion of fat, carbohydrates, and protein. Cacao is classified in the division Magnoliophyta, class Magnoliopsida, order Malvales, family Sterculiaceae.

Description Of The Cacao Tree
Theobroma cacao is a small under story tree native to the American tropical rainforest, which has evolved to utilize the shade of the heavy Cacao Tree (Crillo) (from chocovic.es)canopy. It originated in clumps along riverbanks in the Amazon basin on the eastern equatorial slopes of the Andes. The Cacao Tree is a shade tolerant, moisture loving, under story rainforest tree. It naturally favours riparian zones so often in the wild is found along rivers. The trees live for up to 100 years, but cultivated trees are considered economically productive for only about 60 years. When grown naturally from seed the tree has a 2 meter deep taproot -- however in cultivation, most plantations use vegetative reproduction (cuttings) and that results in a tree without the taproot. Naturally Cacao grows to a height of 15 meters, but cultivated trees are trimmed shorter to make harvesting easier. The main stem of the tree is called the Chupon and the leaves budding off of the chupon (where a fruit was) are a fan. When grown from seed, the Chupon grows single for 1.5 meters and then spreads into layers. The leaves of Cacao are smooth bright green, oblong, about 15cm by 8cm. It is deciduous, it looses it's leaves, with new leaf growth in spurts 2 to 4 times a year. Shade leaves are longer than sun leaves in canopy area. Young leaves are reddish, making them less affected by the intense tropical sun and hang vertically to minimize sun damage. What is really fascinating about Cacao leaves is that they can move 90 degrees from vertical to horizontal and back to get better sun access and to protect young leaves! This is done with a node at the base of the leaf which changes its stiffness with temperature.

Habitat & Range Of The Cacao Tree
Naturally Cacao grows under heavy rainforest canopy, it is cultivated underneath Banana or Casaca (Tapioca) or other large leaf, tree-like, grasses. It has unusually deep roots for a rainforest tree because it naturally tends to grow in the riparian zone. It requires a deep, slightly acidic, moist, well drained soil. In poorer soils, the low shade of the banana is ineffective and the high overhead shade of the canopy is required. The Cacao Tree grows in lowland tropical forests with little seasonality. It needs a consistent climate: temperatures of 21 to 32 degrees Celsius year round -- never lower than 15 C, and 100 to 250 cm of rainfall, well distributed throughout the year with no month less than 10 cm. It grows only below 1000 meters of elevation, and usually below 300 meters. All of this means that it grows only in the tropics -- almost exclusively within 10 degrees latitude of the Equator and only in places that are not too mountainous and do not have monsoons or droughts. The largest number of species is found in northwestern South America, where the tree is native. However over half of the worlds supply of commercial Cacao comes from two East African countries: Cote D'Ivorie (Ivory coast) exports 41%, and it's neighbour, Ghana 13% of the world's supply. Indonesia is third in world exports at 11%. Brazil, Cameroon, Ecuador, Madagascar, Nigeria, Sri Lanka, and Venezuela export significant amounts. And Cacao is also cultivated for export in Columbia, Congo/Zaire, Costa Rica, Cuba, Dominican Republic, Fiji, Gabon, Grenada, Haiti, Jamaica, Malaysia, south central Mexico, Panama, Papua New Guinea, Peru, Philippines, Sau Tome, Sierra Leone, Togo, Trinidad and Western Samoa. Unlike the two other popular drugs that grow in the tropics, coffee and coca, Cacao is not horribly damaging to the rainforest -- it doesn't require open land and in fact, requires the shade of the jungle to grow, although commercial plantations a usually clear of some or all of the forest to make it easier to harvest the pods. As with Coffee, Cacao is a crop that is grown in extremely poor areas with hot climates and manufactured into a product that is generally consumed in very wealthy areas with cool climates.

Reproduction: Fruit, Flower & Pollination
The flowers (and the fruit) are on the trunk of the tree, and it flowers (and fruits) all year long. This means that Cacao has the very unusual quality of having flowers and fruit on the tree at the same time!! It takes a long time, 5 to 8 months, to progress from blossom bud to ripe fruit. On cultivated Cacao plantations, only 3 out of 1000 flowers are pollinated, fertilized and progress to fruit! There are a great many flowers, often waves of flowers covering the main stem of the tree! The white flowers are odourless. There are more flowers at the end of season than at the beginning. Cacao is pollinated by midges (gnat-like insects) and occasionally by bats. Pollination usually occurs in the morning and the flowers die in 24 hrs if not pollinated! Although hermaphroditic, Cacao Flowers are self-incompatible, they cannot fertilize themselves. This creates a much healthier stock in the wild, but is terribly frustrating to plantation owners who cultivate Cacao. It turns out that the Cacao plantations themselves are the reason for the extremely low fertilization rate of the Cacao Flowers, and the potential Chocolate shortage that Chocolate companies are always warning against. The insects that pollinate Cacao live in the rainforest. They require humid shade with a wide range of species and decaying matter on the ground; the natural habitat of Cacao. The midges have no reason to venture far from home into the sunny, dry neatly kept cultivated groves of Cacao trees. "The bigger a Cacao plantation, the more it frustrates the midges in their efforts to pollinate individual Cacao Flowers." -- Allen Young, biologist Cacao has over 400 distinct smells (compare that to 14 in the rose and 7 in the onion) however cultivated Cacao has only a small percentage of those, leaving the midges even more confused! Luckily some Fair Trade and organic Cacao farmers are working with the trees instead of against them. Smaller and more wild plantations are better for the trees, better for the Chocolate, and better for the workers as well. Like most high production food plants, Cacao was almost certainly engineered to produce large and plentiful fruit by the natives of the area many hundreds (or thousands) of years ago. The seeds in these fruit were valued highly by the people living in that region, as well as their northern neighbours. They continue to be highly valued today.

Cacao
after a flower. The large pod is green while maturing and turns yellow, orange, red or purple when ripe (some varieties are still green when ripe). The pods vary significantly in size, shape and texture. They range from about 10 cm to greater than 40 cm in length! They have 5 to 10 veins or longitudinal ridges and are spherical to oblong, shaped roughly like an American football. Fruits are produced throughout the year, simultaneous with more flowering. It takes take 4 to 5 months to achieve the pod size, and then yet another month to ripen! A ripe pod can be left on the tree for 2 or 3 weeks without spoiling. It is important for the flavour that it is harvested only when ripe, although it will not open and lose it's seeds when overripe. If separated from the pod the seeds soon become infertile, but retain their fertility for a long time within the pod. The pulp of the fruit is edible, but it is NOTHING like Chocolate. It is yellow, slippery and sweet and a bit less dense than an apple. I have seen it described as vaguely lemony, although some have suggested it tastes a bit like mango. I have never had it, but I’d love to try it! Monkeys and other small mammals, which break through the pod wall to eat the pulp, disperse seeds.

Varieties And Bean Types
While the cacao tree bears fruit (or pods) all year round, harvesting is generally seasonal. The pods come in a variety of types since cacao trees cross-pollinate freely. These types can be reduced to three classifications: Criollo - the prince of cacaos, is a soft thin-skinned pod, with a light color and a unique, pleasant aroma. Forastero - a more plentiful type, is easier to cultivate and has a thick-walled pod and a pungent aroma. Trinitario - is believed to be a natural cross from strains of other two types, has a great variety of characteristics but generally possesses good, aromatic flavor; and these trees are particularly suitable for cultivation. In the Western Hemisphere, strange as it may seem, plantations composed of just one species of cocoa beans are uncommon. Even single trees with all the characteristics of a specific type are rare. Uniformity exists only where cacao plantations have been developed from the rooted branch cuttings of single mother trees. In recent years, cacao growers have turned increasingly to hybridization as a means of improving the quality of the bean and making it more disease resistant. Scientists using state-of-the-art biotechnology techniques are also trying to improve the quality of cacao and its resistance to disease. Pictured is the outside and inside of a cocoa pod and cocoa beans.

Growing The Cocoa Bean
Cocoa beans are the product of the cacao tree. The origin of the cacao tree is in dispute. Some say it originated in the Amazon basin of Brazil, others place it in the Orinoco Valley of Venezuela, while still others contend that it is native to Central America. Wherever its first home, we know the cocoa tree is strictly a tropical plant thriving only in hot, rainy climates. Thus, its cultivation is confined to the lands not more than 20 degrees north of south of the equator.

The Need For Shelter
The cacao tree is very delicate and sensitive. It needs protection from the wind and requires a fair amount of shade under most conditions. This is true especially in its first two to four years of growth. A newly planted cacao seedling is often sheltered by a different type of tree. It is normal to plant food crops for shade such as banana, plantain, coconuts or cocoyams. Rubber trees and forest trees are also used for shade. Once established, however, cacao trees can grow in full sun light, provided there are fertile soil conditions and intensive husbandry. Cacao plantations (trees under cultivation), and estates, usually in valleys or coastal plains, must have evenly distributed rainfall and rich, well drained soil. As a general rule, cacao trees get their start in a nursery bed where seeds from high yielding trees are planted in fibre baskets or plastic bags. The seedlings grow so fast that in a few months they are ready for transplanting, container and all.

The First Fruit
With pruning and careful cultivation, the trees of most strains will begin bearing fruit in the fifth year. With extreme care, some strains can be induced to yield good crops in the third and fourth years. Everything about the tree is just as colourful as its history. An evergreen, the cacao tree has large glossy leaves that are red when young and green when mature. Overlays of clinging moss and colourful lichens are often found on the bark of the trunk, and in some areas beautiful small orchids grow on its branches. The tree sprouts thousands of tiny waxy pink or white five-pedalled blossoms that cluster together on the trunk and older branches. But, only three to 10 percent will go on to mature into full fruit. The fruit, which will eventually be converted into the world's chocolate and cocoa, has green or sometimes maroon coloured pods on the trunk of the tree and its main branches. Shaped somewhat like an elongated melon tapered at both ends, these pods often ripen into a golden colour or sometimes take on a scarlet hue with multicoloured flecks. At its maturity, the cultivated tree measures from 15 to 25 feet tall, though the tree in its wild state may reach 60 feet or more. The potential age of a tree is open to speculation. There are individual trees known to be over 200 years of age, but no one has determined the real life span of the species. However, in 25 years the economic usefulness of a tree may be considered at an end, and it often becomes desirable to replant with younger trees.

Varieties Of Cacao
While the cacao tree bears fruit (or pods) all year round, harvesting is generally seasonal. The pods come in a variety of types since cacao trees cross-pollinate freely. These types can be reduced to three classifications: Criollo, the prince of cacaos, is a soft thin-skinned pod, with a light colour and a unique, pleasant aroma. Forastero, a more plentiful type, is easier to cultivate and has a thick-walled pod and a pungent aroma. Trinitario, which is believed to be a natural cross from strains of the other two types, has a great variety of characteristics but generally possesses good, aromatic flavour; and these trees are particularly suitable for cultivation. In the Western Hemisphere, strange as it may seem, plantations composed of just one species of cocoa beans are uncommon. Even single trees with all the characteristics of a specific type are rare. Uniformity exists only where cacao plantations have been developed from the rooted branch cuttings of single mother trees. In recent years, cacao growers have turned increasingly to hybridisation as a means of improving the quality of the bean and making it more disease resistant. Scientists using state-of-the-art biotechnology techniques are also trying to improve the quality of cacao and its resistance to disease.

Handling The Harvest
The job of picking ripe cacao pods is not an easy one. The tree is so frail and its roots are so shallow that workmen cannot risk injuring it by climbing to reach the pods on the higher branches. The planter sends his tumbadores, or pickers, into the fields with long handled, mitten-shaped steel knives that can reach the highest pods and snip them without wounding the soft bark of the tree. Machetes are used for the pods growing within reach on the lower trunk.

Where Experience Counts
It requires training and experience to know by appearance which fruit is ripe and ready to be cut. Ripe pods are found on trees at all times since the growing season in the tropics, with its evenly distributed rainfall, is continuous. For most localities there is a main harvest lasting several months and a mid-crop harvest lasting several more months. Climatic differences cause wide variations in harvest times with frequent fluctuations from year to year even within the same location.

What Happens After Picking
Gathers follow the harvesters who have removed the ripe pods from the trees. The pods are collected in baskets and transported to the edge of a field where the pod breaking operation begins. One or two lengthwise blows from a well-wielded machete is usually enough to split open the woody shells. A good breaker can open 500 pods an hour. A great deal of patience is required to complete harvesting. Anywhere from 20 to 50 cream-coloured beans are scooped from a typical pod and the husk and inner membrane are discarded. Dried beans from an average pod weigh less than two ounces, and approximately 400 beans are required to make one pound of chocolate. The beans are still many steps away from the familiar finished product. Exposure to air quickly changes the cream-coloured beans to a lavender or purple. They do not look like the finished chocolate nor do they have the well-known fragrance of chocolate at this time.

Preparing The Crop For Shipment
The cocoa beans or seeds that are removed from the pods are put into boxes or thrown on heaps and covered. Around the beans is a layer of pulp that starts to heat up and ferment. Fermentation lasts from three to nine days and serves to remove the raw bitter taste of cocoa and to develop precursors and components that are characteristic of chocolate flavour. Fermenting is a simple "yeasting" process in which the sugars contained in the beans are converted to acid, primarily lactic acid and acetic acid. The process generates temperatures as high as 125 degrees Fahrenheit, which kill the germ of the bean and activate existing enzymes in the beans to form compounds that produce the chocolate flavour when the beans are roasted. The result is a fully developed bean with a rich brown colour, a sign that the cocoa is now ready for drying.

Drying Is Important
Like any moisture-filled fruit, the beans must be dried if they are to keep. In some countries, drying is accomplished simply by laying the beans on trays or bamboo matting and leaving them to bask in the sun. When moist climate conditions interfere with sun-drying, artificial methods are used. For example, the beans can be carried indoors and dried by hot-air pipes. With favourable weather the drying process usually takes several days. In this interval, farmers turn the beans frequently and use the opportunity to pick them over for foreign matter and flat, broken or germinated beans. During drying, beans lose nearly all their moisture and more than half their weight. When the beans are dried, they are prepared for shipping in 130 to 200 pound sacks. They are seldom stored except at shipping centres, where they await inspection by buyers.

Marketing For Export
Buyers sample the quality of a crop by cutting open a number of beans to see that they are properly fermented. Purple centres indicate incomplete fermentation. If the prevailing crop is found satisfactory, the grower is paid at the current market price. The market price depends not only on the abundance of the worldwide crop and the quality of farmers' crops in a number of countries, but on a number of economic conditions throughout the world. The industry has set up Cocoa Exchanges, similar to stock exchanges, in principle cities such as New York, London, Hamburg and Amsterdam.

From The Bean To Chocolate
We now come to the remarkable art of chocolate making, a process that is comparable with the skill and finesse of the world's greatest chefs. The manufacturing process requires much time and painstaking care. Just to make an individual-size chocolate bar, for instance, takes from two to four days or more. Manufacturing methods will differ in detail from plant to plant, but there is a general processing pattern which prevails everywhere. It is this pattern that makes the chocolate industry distinctive from every other industry. For example, all manufacturers carefully catalogue each shipment according to its particular type and origin. This is very important, because it enables them later to maintain exact control over the flavour blending of beans for roasting.

Prior To Roasting
While awaiting the blending process, the beans are carefully stored. The storage area must be isolated from the rest of the building so the sensitive cocoa does not come into contact with strong odours that may absorb as an off-flavour. Every step of the way so far reflects the close regulation of conditions that is needed to ensure the production of uniformly high quality chocolate. The first step to actual manufacturing is cleaning. This is done by passing the cocoa beans through a cleaning machine that removes dried cacao pulp, pieces of pod and other extraneous material that had not been removed earlier. When thoroughly cleaned, the beans are carefully weighed and blended according to a company's particular specifications. These formulas are based on experience and desirability. In the science of chocolate making, much depends upon the ability to achieve the right formula for the desired end product through the proper selection of beans available. To bring out the characteristic chocolate aroma, the beans are roasted in large rotary cylinders. Depending upon the variety of the beans and the desired end result, the roasting lasts from 30 minutes to two hours at temperatures of 250 degrees Fahrenheit and higher. As the beans turn over and over, their moisture content drops, their colour changes to a rich brown, and the characteristic aroma of chocolate becomes evident.

What Follows Roasting
Proper roasting is one of the keys to good flavour, but there are still several more steps to follow. After roasting, the beans are quickly cooled and their thin shells, made brittle by roasting, are removed. In most factories, this is done by a "cracker and fanner," a giant winnowing machine that passes the beans between serrated cones so they are cracked rather than crushed. In the process, a series of mechanical sieves separate the broken pieces into large and small grains while fans blow away the thin, light shell from the meat or "nibs." The nibs, which contain about 53 percent cocoa butter, are next conveyed to mills, where they are crushed between large grinding stones or heavy steel discs. The process generates enough frictional heat to liquefy the cocoa butter and form what is commercially know as chocolate liquor. The term liquor does not refer to alcohol, it simply means liquid. When the liquid is poured into moulds and allowed to solidify, the resulting cakes are unsweetened or bitter chocolate. Up to this point, the manufacturing of cocoa and chocolate is identical. The process now diverges, but there is an important interconnection to be noted. The by-product of cocoa shortly becomes an essential component of chocolate. That component is the unique vegetable fat, cocoa butter, which forms about 25 percent of the weight of most chocolate bars.

How To Make Cocoa Powder
The chocolate liquor, destined to become a cup of cocoa, is pumped into giant hydraulic presses weighing up to 25 tons, where pressure is applied to remove the desired cocoa butter. The fat drains away through metallic screens as a yellow liquid. It is then collected for use in chocolate manufacturing. Cocoa butter has such importance for the chocolate industry that it deserves more than a passing mention. It is unique among vegetable fats because it is a solid at normal room temperature and melts at 89 to 93 degrees Fahrenheit, which is just below body temperature. Its success in resisting oxidation and rancidity makes it very practical. Under normal storage conditions, cocoa butter can be kept for years without spoiling. The pressed cake that is left after the removal of cocoa butter can be cooled, pulverized and sifted into cocoa powder. Cocoa that is packaged for sale to grocery stores or put into bulk for use as a flavour by dairies, bakeries, and confectionery manufacturers, may have 10 percent or more cocoa butter content. "Breakfast cocoa," a less common type, must contain at least 22 percent cocoa butter. In the so-called "Dutch" process, the manufacturer treats the cocoa with an alkali to develop a slightly different flavour and give the cocoa a darker appearance characteristic of the Dutch type. The alkali acts as a processing agent rather than as a flavour ingredient.

How To Make Eating Chocolate
While cocoa is made by removing some of the cocoa butter, eating chocolate is made by adding it. This holds true of all eating chocolate, whether it is dark, bittersweet, or milk chocolate. Besides enhancing the flavour, the added cocoa butter serves to make the chocolate more fluid. One example of eating chocolate is sweet chocolate, a combination of unsweetened chocolate, sugar, cocoa butter and perhaps a little vanilla. Making it entails melting and combining the ingredients in a large mixing machine until the mass has the consistency of dough. Milk chocolate, the most common form of eating chocolate, goes through essentially the same mixing process-except that it involves using less unsweetened chocolate and adding milk. Whatever ingredients are used, the mixture then travels through a series of heavy rollers set one atop the other. Under the grinding that takes place here, the mixture is refined to a smooth paste ready for "conching."

What Is Conching?
Conching is a flavour development process which puts the chocolate through a "kneading" action and takes its name from the shell-like shape of the containers originally employed. The "conches," as the machines are called, are equipped with heavy rollers that plough back and forth through the chocolate mass anywhere from a few hours to several days. Under regulated speeds, these rollers can produce different degrees of agitation and aeration in developing and modifying the chocolate flavours. In some manufacturing set ups, there is an emulsifying operation that either takes the place of conching or else supplements it. This operation is carried out by a machine that works like an eggbeater to break up sugar crystals and other particles in the chocolate mixture to give it a fine, velvety smoothness. After the emulsifying or conching machines, the mixture goes through a tempering interval-heating, cooling and reheating-and then at last into moulds to be formed into the shape of the complete product. The moulds take a variety of shapes and sizes, from the popular individual-size bars available to consumers to a ten-pound block used by confectionery manufacturers.

Ready For Shipment
When the moulded chocolate reaches the cooling chamber, cooling proceeds at a fixed rate that keeps hard-earned flavour intact. The bars are then removed from the moulds and passed along to wrapping machines to be packed for shipment to distributors, confectioners and others throughout the country. For convenience, chocolate is frequently shipped in a liquid state when intended for use by other food manufacturers. Whether solid or liquid, it provides candy, cookie, and ice cream manufacturers with the most popular flavour for their products. Additionally, a portion of the United State's total chocolate output goes into coatings, powders and flavourings that add zest to our foods in a thousand different ways.

Inside A Chocolate Factory
In touring a chocolate factory, one is particularly impressed by the close controls maintained throughout operations. Work is carried out in an atmosphere of scientific exactness and nothing is left to chance. Precision instruments regulate temperatures, stabilize the moisture content of the air, and control the time intervals of manufacturing operations and other items necessary to achieve quality results. The equipment of a factory is heavy, massive and complex. Often representing an investment of many millions of dollars, there are literally tons of equipment that the cocoa beans must pass through on their way to becoming chocolate.

Automation Does The Job
Besides the equipment already described, the industry employs a number of fascinating machines to do the work of shaping and packaging chocolate into the familiar forms that we see every day on store counters. Some of the shaping machines perform at amazing speeds, squirting out jets of chocolate that solidify into special shapes at a rate of several hundred a minute.* Other machines do a complete job of wrapping and packaging at speeds that human hands would find impossible. Separate from the chocolate industry but of interest nonetheless, is the enrober-a machine employed by many candy manufactures in the creation of assorted chocolates. The enrober receives lines of assorted centres (nuts, nougats, fruit or whatever desired filling) and showers them with a waterfall of liquid chocolate. This generally covers and surrounds each centre with a blanket of chocolate. Yet other confectionery machines create a hallow-moulded shell of chocolate, which is then filled with a soft or liquid centre before the bottom is sealed with chocolate. The mechanized nature of the entire chocolate-making process contributes greatly to the industry's high standards of hygiene and sanitation. To keep check on these standards, chocolate factories constantly run quality tests, which show whether the process is proceeding within the strict limitations designed for each product. These tests cover an amazing range-there are tests for the viscosity of chocolate, for the cocoa butter content, for acidity, for the fineness of a product and, of course, tests for purity and taste of the desired finished product. All chocolate manufacturers, it is important to note, must meet the standards as set forth in the rules and regulations of The Food and Drug Administration. These govern manufacturing formulas, even to the extent of specifying the minimum content of the chocolate liquor and milk used. They also impose strict rules regarding the flavourings and other ingredients that may be used.

Reasons For Secrecy
Where methods of manufacturing are concerned; however, manufacturers have a completely free hand and have developed individual variations from the "pattern." Each manufacturer seeks to protect his own methods by conducting certain operations under an atmosphere of secrecy. Modern technology, in this respect, is reminiscent of the day of the Spanish monopoly. Today's "secrets," unlike those of old, include many small but important details which centre around key manufacturing operations. No chef guards his favourite recipes more zealously than the chocolate manufacturer guards his formulas for blending beans or the time intervals he gives to his conching. Time intervals, temperatures and proportions of ingredients are three critical factors that no company wants to divulge.

A Sanitary Atmosphere
A visit to a chocolate factory certainly will not reveal any secrets; however, the visitor will be impressed by the gleaming appearance that such a place has. Chocolate manufacturers conduct all operations under sanitary, laboratory-like conditions in keeping with the purity of the products they make. They follow a daily regimen of machine maintenance and general housekeeping that is not exceeded in the food industry. Cleanliness is, indeed, the universal byword of the chocolate industry. Chocolate factories not only have careful programs for industrial sanitation and for the personal hygiene of their employees, but they are continually striving to improve their programs.

A Plant Within A Plant
Technicians use laboratories to analyse every phase of chocolate preparation-from raw materials to finished products. They test samples for the market as well as experimental products produced in a company's pilot plants. These pilot plants consist of miniature equipment which duplicates a company's entire chocolate making process and those of some of their customers, as well as providing sample quantities of any product desired. Chocolate manufacturers are making increasing use of pilot plants in conjunction with their laboratory research programs to develop interesting new products and find new ways of making the old ones.




For more information please visit      http://www.worldcocoa.org