Residues in cocoa drinks? [Ökotest 2023]

The new “Ökotest”, issue 5 – 2023, this time targeted “beverage powder containing cocoa”, of which seven products identified themselves as “organic products”. The packaging of all 16 products was designed in such a way that there was no doubt that the cocoa drinks were primarily aimed at children.

“Ökotest” then had a number of parameters checked by a laboratory, such as sugar and fat content, theobromine, caffeine, cocoa powder content and also pollutants such as cadmium, mineral oil residues (MOSH) and pathogens (E. coli, salmonella, mold, etc .).

Other aspects were deficiencies in the declaration of the reference quantity for nutritional values, portion size, etc. And questions were asked about “transparency along the supply chain”, about certificates, minimum prices and premiums for producers/farmers, prevention of child labor, human rights, etc.

The last-mentioned points are certainly of great importance, but are not a typical feature of a cocoa test. In principle, these questions apply to all products imported from emerging countries, including jeans from Bangladesh and costume jewelery from China.

Since the cocoa drinks are a product that is offered as food, the assessment of this property is much more important in my opinion. And here there is a lot to complain about, if you can believe the “Ökotest”.

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The results

The grade “insufficient” was awarded twice. The “winners” of this rating were “Caribo Bio Drink” and the classic cocoa drink “Nesquick Nestlé”. What made these two products stand out in such an “outstanding” way?

In “Caribo” the laboratory found increased MOSH concentrations, cadmium, a greatly increased sugar content and a proportion of cocoa powder of only 22 percent. The customer has to pay almost EUR 4.90 per 400 grams for this. The company did not find it necessary to provide any information about the country of origin of the cocoa, certifications, child labor, etc.

“Nesquick” from “Nestlé” contains “only” increased MOSH residues, but also an increased sugar content, which reduces the proportion of cocoa powder to 21 percent. The company wants to collect EUR 2.29 for this.

The top mark from “Ökotest” of all candidates was “satisfactory”. There were only five with this rating (“Bio Central Bio Kids”, “K-Bio Drinking Chocolate”, “Naturata Cocoa Drink”, “Ja! Kakao Drink” and “Penny Cho-Quick”).

If you look at the percentages in relation to the cocoa powder content of these candidates, then it doesn’t look much better than the “6” candidates: Yes! and Penny only have a share of 21 percent, but at EUR 1.50 they are cheap in the truest sense of the word.

The three other “3” candidates have a cocoa content of between 34-41 percent (K-Bio drinking chocolate = 41 percent). It is noticeable here that the candidate with the highest cocoa content, at EUR 3.99, charges significantly less than, for example, Naturata with a 37 percent share and a price of EUR 6.16.

With regard to the sugar content, the “Ökotest” makes a somewhat strange assessment. And that in two ways.

In the five “3” candidates, the sugar content is rated as “increased” or “okay”. I guess under that classification everyone gets to choose what they think is right at the time.

It is also irritating that the two candidates with the 21 percent cocoa content and “increased” sugar content still received the grade “satisfactory”. This may be because MOSH and cadmium were found in the other three candidates.

Highest cocoa powder content and lowest sugar content

With all this hilarious back and forth of “elevated” and “okay”, with stated and not stated etc., perhaps from a nutritional point of view it would be better to take a closer look at the cocoa powder content and the sugar content.

Cocoa powder share: “Kaba” was the “king of marksmen” in terms of the lowest share, with only 19 percent (EUR 1.83). And according to the test report, the sugar content was “greatly increased”, which fuels the suspicion that expensive cocoa has been replaced with cheap sugar (as with most other products). Almost all other products showed a share of 20-22 percent.

We had already been able to determine the highest proportion of cocoa powder: K-Bio drinking chocolate with 41 percent. Another candidate with 41 percent cocoa powder was the product from “Rapunzel Tiger Quick”, for which the company charges the customer EUR 6.49, i.e. one and a half times as expensive as the K-Bio drinking chocolate.

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However, Rapunzel was only rated “sufficient” because MOSH and cadmium were found in the laboratory.

Sugar content: There are only three ratings here, namely “okay”, “increased” and “strongly increased”. With this vague assessment is actually said everything and nothing at all. I don’t know if “Ökotest” is trying to put the high sugar content into perspective, at least for some of the products tested?

My opinion on sugar (in food):

“Ökotest” also remarks relatively laconically that all the cocoa powders listed here “are mixed with milk to make a drink”.

Or in other words: after a lot of sugar and a few pollutants, there is the health-destroying rest in the form of milk, which “Ökotest” seems to believe has something to do with health. I think differently:

Conclusion

Due to the sweet results of “Ökotest” for cocoa powder, I would not put any of these products on my shopping list. And certainly not with milk.

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This post was created on May 1st, 2023.