Cocoa butter: An indispensable raw material in food, pharma, and cosmetic industries
Cocoa butter. An essential ingredient in the manufacturing of not only chocolates but also other food items like cakes and ice cream, cosmetics, and pharmaceuticals. The ingredient that lends that delicate chocolatey aroma and taste to the desserts we love, but can also be made tasteless and odourless for other applications, say, in the pharma industry.
Cocoa butter boasts of over 300 aromatic chemicals. It is pale yellow in colour, smooth in texture, and distinctive in flavour and aroma. Its creamy texture makes it popular in the food industry, where it can be used as a dairy butter substitute.
Cocoa butter's emollient properties make it a commonly used ingredient in moisturisers, lotions, lip balms, lipsticks, shaving creams, hair masks, and conditioners. Cocoa butter is also extremely useful in soothing minor burns and rashes, and the symptoms of skin conditions like eczema and dermatitis. Because of its antioxidant properties it is also used in scar treatment, anti-inflammation, anti-ageing, and hair loss management.
Cocoa butter is versatile, to say the least. Its versatility has resulted in high demand and high prices, a problem compounded by a limited supply of cocoa butter. These compulsions make it essential for cocoa butter production plants to make the most of the limited raw materials that they have.
How do cocoa butter producers do this? Beyond cocoa cultivation methods, bean quality and storage conditions, the quality and quantity of cocoa butter production depend on the cocoa butter manufacturing processes, technologies and equipment used.
In essence, owners and operators of cocoa butter processing plants don't have full control over the quality of their product as they are usually not involved in the cultivation of cocoa beans. However, they can exercise control over their product quality when they source the raw materials from cultivators. By only purchasing high-quality beans that are grown sustainably, and fermented and dried perfectly, they can ensure that the cocoa butter that they produce is of only the very best quality.
This article serves as a process manual for operators of cocoa butter processing plants. From sourcing cocoa beans or intermediate cocoa products to preparing them, extracting cocoa butter, and refining it, it offers a blueprint for end-to-end cocoa butter production. Most importantly, not only does it detail all the steps in the cocoa butter manufacturing process but it also offers recommendations for the best processing technologies and equipment.
Cocoa bean cultivation and sourcing
Cocoa butter comes from cocoa mass which comes from cocoa beans.
Cocoa beans are cultivated largely in tropical areas - Ghana and Côte d'Ivoire in West Africa, countries like Ecuador in Latin America, the states of Kerala, Karnataka, Andhra Pradesh and Tamil Nadu in India, and Indonesia in Southeast Asia are notable producers of cocoa, with the West African nations mentioned above accounting for the lion's share of global cocoa production.
There are three main varieties of cocoa trees - criollo, trinitario, and forastero. But other than the type of cocoa tree, there is an important factor which affects the cocoa pod yield: rainfall. Cocoa trees require generous rainfall, between 1500 and 2000 mm, distributed throughout the year. Additionally, practices like weeding, pruning, fertilizer application, and pest control also affect the growth of cocoa trees and consequently, the results of the cocoa butter production process.
While cocoa trees can live as long as 100 years, they are most productive for the first two to three decades of their lives. On the trunk and branches of these trees grow cocoa pods, which contain within them cocoa beans. Cocoa cultivators have three to four weeks to harvest the pods, after which the beans within them begin to germinate. They remove ripe pods manually and within 10 days, they open them to extract the wet cocoa beans. The extracted cocoa beans are fermented and dried to enhance their flavour, colour and storability.
Fermented and dried cocoa beans are cleaned to remove any poor-quality beans, sticks, stones and any other unwanted elements. Farmers may sell these beans to intermediaries like small traders or wholesalers; they may also sell or export the raw material independently or through cooperatives.
This is traditionally where your role, as the owner or operator of a cocoa butter processing plant, begins: at the sourcing stage.
Depending on your networks, logistical constraints and other factors affecting your business, you may purchase cocoa beans for cocoa butter production either from intermediaries or directly from farmers. There is no single way to approach the sourcing process, but we do recommend direct sourcing - after all, the shorter the supply chain, the easier it is to ensure traceability, efficiency, trust, and sustainability. Given how important cocoa bean type and quality are to the quality of the cocoa butter you will produce, we can't stress enough how crucial it is for you to prioritise these factors.
Cocoa bean preparation
Cocoa bean preparation begins with cleaning. If rotten seeds, sticks and other physical impurities haven't already been removed, they are eliminated during the preparatory stage. Equipment like Kumar's seed cleaner may be used for this process.
Since many cocoa butter preparations use a blend of different beans, at this stage, the desired blend is mixed. Blending is followed by winnowing to strip the beans of their husks and to break them up. Inside are kernels, called nibs - these are treated with heat to remove potentially harmful bacteria and then alkalised. After roasting and grinding the nibs, you get cocoa mass: half cocoa butter and half cocoa solids.
This is where the preparatory steps in cocoa butter manufacturing end and the extraction process begins.
Cocoa butter extraction
Cocoa butter is extracted from cocoa mass using one of the oldest and most common oil and fat extraction processes: mechanical extraction. In the case of cocoa butter production, the pressure used is as high as 550 kg/sq.cm.
Mechanical extraction can usually be carried out using a screw press or a hydraulic press. In the case of cocoa butter manufacturing, it is more effective to use a hydraulic press. This is because cocoa butter's delicate composition and special flavour can be negatively impacted by the high temperatures generated by screw presses.
On the other hand, hydraulic press-based cocoa butter processing machines use liquid as a pressure transmission medium. This means that no excess heat is generated and the delicate aromatic and flavour chemicals in the cocoa butter are protected. Additionally, hydraulic pressing also reduces the presence of impurities in the extracted cocoa butter. This makes hydraulic pressed cocoa butter a safe option not only for food products but also for cosmetic, chemical, and pharmaceutical industry applications.
After expeller pressing i.e. mechanical extraction, the cocoa butter may be filtered to remove any solid cocoa components in the extracted fat. Meanwhile, the cocoa solids which remain after fat extraction get pressed together to form cocoa cakes. The absence of impurities and heat damage means that the cake residue from cocoa butter production has a high secondary value. Eventually, these cocoa cakes are broken down into cocoa powder or other cocoa products.
But often - typically due to the nature of hydraulic pressing - a commercially significant amount of cocoa butter content remains in the cocoa cake. At this stage, the other most popular oil and fat extraction method i.e. solvent extraction is used. Using common, industry-accepted solvents like hexane, the remaining cocoa butter is extracted from the cake.
While the cake residue gets redirected to other industries, mainly the food industry, where it is a useful raw material, the extracted cocoa butter (from both, the mechanical and solvent processes) is transported to a refinery.
Cocoa butter refining
Most crude vegetable oils and fats need to be refined before they are fit for human consumption. This is because they may contain undesirable components like colour pigments, phosphatides, metal contaminants, free fatty acids (FFAs), and/or odoriferous compounds. The specific refining processes chosen for each oil or fat depend not only on the quality of the crude oil/fat but also on the desired quality parameters of the final product.
To give you a quick overview, the process of turning crude cocoa butter into refined cocoa butter involves the processes of degumming, neutralisation, bleaching, and deodorization and deacidification.
Let's look at each of these processes in more detail.
Degumming. Generally, the first step in edible oil refining, degumming removes unwanted gums from the crude cocoa butter. Wet gums are produced as by-products of degumming.
Neutralisation. This chemical refining process, also called alkali refining, results in the production of soap stock as a by-product.
Bleaching. This physico-chemical refining step involves colour adsorption, and the removal of residual soap content, phosphorous content, peroxide and metal contaminants. Spent earth is a by-product of this process. Equipment like Kumar's Ecopure Bleacher or Stable Bleacher are good choices for this process.
Deodorisation and deacification. The most critical of all refining steps, these physical refining processes help eliminate FFAs and volatile components which lend the fat undesirable colours and odours. A fatty acid distillate is left behind after the deodorization and deacidification of cocoa butter. Kumar's EcoPack Deodoriser or Crown's Diflow Deodorizer may work for your cocoa butter refinery.
At the end of all these processes, you obtain refined cocoa butter. Ready to be used in the preparation of chocolates, ice creams, moisturisers, cosmetics, and creams.
Recommended equipment for cocoa butter manufacturing
When selecting equipment for your cocoa butter processing plant, you need to consider not only the quality of the machines but also their suitability for the cocoa butter production process.
You want cocoa butter manufacturing equipment that is durable, long-lasting, and with minimal wear and tear. You also want equipment that is easy to clean, cost-effective, and will guarantee product quality and safety.
Naturally, there is no one-size-fits-all solution. The equipment that you invest in will depend on your budget, the scale of your operations, the specific processes that you choose to include, and various other factors affecting your business.
However, there are some general principles that we would encourage you to follow. For starters, source your cocoa beans responsibly. If you purchase poor-quality cocoa beans, you're sure to get a poor-quality product. Moreover, rotten seeds and impurities like sticks and stones will not only impact product quality, they will also affect the functioning of your equipment. This will only increase maintenance costs in the long run.
Second, go for a hydraulic press rather than a screw press. While you might be tempted by the lower CAPEX costs of a screw press, purchasing a hydraulic cocoa butter processing machine is a better investment. A hydraulic press will help you produce cocoa butter of a superior quality. It will retain the nutritional, flavour and aromatic components that make cocoa butter as versatile and popular as it is. You can, in turn, charge a premium for this quality product.
Nonetheless, if you choose to use a screw press for cocoa butter production, you should use one that is suited to continuous processing. This will make the entire process not only more efficient but also more cost-effective than a batch process.
Kumar's X' Press Series Oil Expeller Max 200 is a good option for mechanical cocoa butter extraction while the CFx Extractor is suitable for solvent extraction.
Selecting an entire range of cocoa butter processing machines - from preparatory equipment to extraction machines to a refinery setup - is a complex endeavour, to say the least. But in our 80+ years of operations, we at Kumar have helped more than 500 customers through 700 projects that involve multiple stages and diverse equipment. We can help you, too.
Our team of experts helps you make the best selection from among our superior engineering solutions. This involves not only having a robust understanding of cutting-edge technologies in the edible oils and fats industry but also developing a holistic understanding of your project requirements and constraints. At the end of the day, it's your project; we're only partners in your journey of creating quality products for your consumers.
Get started on your next cocoa butter production project today. All you have to do is reach out. We're always happy to help.
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