Chocolate

CHOCOLATE IS ONE of the most popular food types and flavors in the world. It is made primarily from cocoa beans and is used in a wide variety of products, including chocolate bars, baked goods (both as flavoring and decoration), beverages, such as chocolate milk, and flavored items like ice cream, yogurt, and many others.

Kashrus Considerations

Chocolate presents unique kashrus challenges related to equipment (keilim), in addition to the need for all of the ingredients to be kosher. All equipment used in the production must share the same kosher status as the final product, either pareve, dairy, Cholov Yisroel, or kosher for Passover.

Liquid chocolate hardens at room temperature, so manufacturers keep it hot by circulating hot water
through jackets surrounding the holding tanks. This creates a kashrus concern if the same water is shared with chocolate of a different status (dairy, non-kosher, or chametz).

Liquid chocolate is also often shipped between plants in heated tankers. If a tanker previously carried a non-kosher product or chocolate with a different kosher status, it must be kashered before transporting the kosher product.

A reliable kosher certifying agency will take all necessary steps to ensure that these concerns are properly addressed in any kosher chocolate production.

Shared Equipment
Dark chocolate processed on dairy equipment is generally certified as dairy rather than dairy equipment (DE). During changeovers, lines are often emptied but not washed, which allows trace amounts of dairy chocolate to remain on the equipment and mix into the dark chocolate. Although these amounts may be small enough that labeling laws do not require a dairy declaration, they can still affect the kosher status of the chocolate and require dairy certification.

A DE designation is only used when products are completely free of dairy residue.

Kashering

Chocolate processing equipment is heated, which means it requires kashering when changing status—from non-kosher to kosher, dairy to pareve, Cholov Stam to Cholov Yisroel, or for Passover productions. The standard method of kashering such equipment is hagalah (boiling water). However, chocolate equipment presents special challenges because even a small amount of water entering the system can ruin an entire batch of chocolate, so most manufacturers are hesitant to use water on the equipment.

Kashering With Oil
There is an ongoing discussion among Poskim about whether hagalah may be performed using vegetable oil instead of water.

The Rema (Orach Chaim 452:5) rules: “One may not perform hagalah with any liquid other than water. However, b’dieved, if one performed hagalah with any liquid (b’chol mashkeh), it is valid.”

Accordingly, some argue that since companies avoid using water due to the risk of product loss, the situation may be considered shas hadchak (an extreme situation), and since דמי כדיעבד הדחק שעת כל, it would be permitted to kasher with other liquids, such as vegetable oil. Many kashrus agencies do, in fact, rely on this leniency and kasher with oil. However, OK Kosher does not rely on this approach. The OK will either kasher with boiling water (in rare cases), ensuring the equipment is fully dried before use, or perform libun.

Kashering With Chocolate
Some Poskim take the idea further and allow the lines to be kashered with chocolate. The chocolate used for kashering would not be considered kosher, and only later production runs would be kosher certified.

However, aside from the b’dieved concerns mentioned above, kashering with chocolate is even more controversial. Chocolate is solid at room temperature and must be heated to become liquid. Therefore, its classification as a typical liquid (mashkeh) for purposes of hagalah is questionable
(Igros Moshe 14:1, Yoreh Deah 2:41).

Cholov Yisroel / Passover Production

When OK Kosher certifies specialty productions such as Cholov Yisroel or Kosher for Passover chocolate, production is only done with a mashgiach temidi.