Information about Testing Process and Data on the Levels of Heavy Metals Lead and Cadmium in Supermarket Chocolate Products
Request
Your request was about the following information:
As supermarkets provide no information surrounding their testing process, please provide any available data on the levels of the heavy metals lead and cadmium in the following products:
1. Sainsbury’s Taste the Difference Ugandan 90% Dark Chocolate (100g), as listed at: https://www.sainsburys.co.uk/gol-ui/product/sainsburys-ugandan-90-dark-chocolate-tastethe-difference-100g
2. Sainsbury’s Taste the Difference Madagascan 80% Dark Chocolate (100g), as listed at: https://www.sainsburys.co.uk/gol-ui/product/sainsburys-madagascan-80-dark-chocolatetaste-the-difference-100g
3. Tesco Finest Dark Chocolate, as listed at: https://www.tesco.com/groceries/enGB/products/315377302
If specific data for these brands is not available, please provide any general information held on lead and cadmium levels in similar dark chocolate products and/or information on the testing that these supermarkets are required to do before their products are sold to Scottish citisens.
Response
All food businesses have a legal responsibility to ensure the products they place on the market are safe and comply with regulatory food safety standards (including legal limits for heavy metals and contaminants). Local Authorities (LAs) are responsible for the enforcement of food manufacturers and retailers in Scotland, and deliver this role by undertaking inspections at these businesses to verify compliance with food law. Where appropriate, LAs will collect samples to support their inspection activities, which they submit to Official Control Public Analyst laboratories for testing. Where the results indicate that regulatory requirements for food safety have been breached, LAs will take appropriate action to ensure unsafe food is not placed on the market.
Food Standards Scotland (FSS) does not hold details of food testing undertaken by supermarkets, but we do hold records of samples that are taken by LAs from food manufacturers and retailers in Scotland, either for surveillance purposes, or to verify compliance with food law. Information relating to these samples, including testing results, is recorded on our Scottish Food Sampling Database (SFSD).
The attached table with the title ‘Heavy metal analysis in dark chocolate - 2013_2025’ provides the details of samples of dark chocolate recorded on SFSD between 1st July 2013 to 19th May 2025.
The table indicates that 31 different products described as dark chocolate were sampled between 1st July 2013 to 19th May 2025, including 3 which were labelled as having the Taste the Difference brand name, and one which was labelled as a Tesco product.
All 31 of these samples were found to be satisfactory for cadmium, meaning that they complied with the safety limits specified in Regulation 1881/2006 which sets maximum levels for certain contaminants in foodstuffs. Limits for cadmium in specific cocoa and chocolate products are laid out in Annex I, Paragraph 3.2.7 of this regulation:
|
3.2.7 |
Specific cocoa and chocolate products as listed below |
Maximum levels(mg/kg wet weight) |
|
— Milk chocolate with < 30 % total dry cocoa solids |
0,10 as from 1 January 2019 |
|
|
— Chocolate with < 50 % total dry cocoa solids; milk chocolate with ≥ 30 % total dry cocoa solids |
0,30 as from 1 January 2019 |
|
|
— Chocolate with ≥ 50 % total dry cocoa solids |
0,80 as from 1 January 2019 |
|
|
— Cocoa powder sold to the final consumer or as an ingredient in sweetened cocoa powder sold to the final consumer (drinking chocolate) |
0,60 as from 1 January 2019 |
28 of the 31 samples were also tested for lead, with 11 of these samples giving a result of zero, and the remaining 17 found to contain between 0.01 and 0.08 mg/kg. Although the Regulations do not provide maximum limits for lead in cocoa and chocolate products, the levels identified were compared to maximum limits for lead in comparable products, and deemed to be satisfactory by the Public Analysts.
