Cocoa and chocolate products (cocoa powder, dark, milk, chips): HMTc Standard

How limits are set

The standard for each analyte is the strictest maximum level set by any credible government regulator, among them the European Union, Codex Alimentarius, the US FDA, Australia/New Zealand, the Gulf states (GSO), and the national authorities of every jurisdiction that regulates the product, converted into Cocoa and chocolate products (cocoa powder, dark, milk, chips)’s own as-sold basis. It is a lookup of sovereign law, carrying at most one disclosed basis conversion where the law is written in another basis, and an explicit read-across where no government regulates the exact product. A certified product sits at or below every applicable sovereign limit at once.

Where no government regulates the exact product for an analyte, the standard does not go blank or invent a number: the limit is read across from the nearest government value for an analogous product, so a certified product still sits at or below a real sovereign limit. The ratchet tightens these after publication as surveillance warrants.

Master Limit Table

All values in ppb (µg/kg), as-sold basis. 5 of 11 analytes carry a firm ceiling; the remaining 6 are governed by mandatory control or the total-metal screen with no standalone number, itemised in the derivation below. A brand meeting every firm value on a like-for-like basis, and passing every control, qualifies for the mark.

Tier 1 (Pb, iAs, Hg, MeHg, Cd) are zero-tolerance toxics with no established safe threshold. Tier 2 (tAs, Ni, Sn, Al, Cr, Cr-VI) are held to the same government limit: tiering sets how the program reacts to an exceedance, not any permission to exceed it. A product is certified only when every analyte is at or below 100% of its published limit; above the limit, on any metal, it is not certified and carries no mark.

Derivation

For Cocoa and chocolate products (cocoa powder, dark, milk, chips), each HMTc limit is the strictest maximum level any credible government sets for the product, named in the Binding column with the count of jurisdictions that concur at that value. Where no government regulates the analyte, the cell is a mandatory control or a not-material determination, never an invented number.

Form-specific limits

Where a government sets the maximum by product sub-form, the HMTc column above shows the range and the exact ceiling for each form is listed here. A certified product meets the ceiling for its own form.

Occurrence and derivation rationale

For each analyte on the panel: what the peer-reviewed and survey literature measured in this category, cited one way to the Heavy Metal Index, and the Method v2.0 reasoning behind the certification limit, including, where no government sets a number, why the program sets one anyway. Occurrence figures are literature findings; the derivation is the certifier's.

Risk Flag

On the published occurrence literature to date, Cocoa and chocolate products (cocoa powder, dark, milk, chips) shows no systematic gap between typical market levels and the limit: the limit being the strictest government maximum for the product (Method v2.0). Certification is decided on a product’s own tested result, not on a distribution; an individual lot or supplier can still exceed a limit.

See the cross-category summary of the ingredients that most often struggle.

Cite this standard

Pendergrass, K. (2026). Cocoa and chocolate products (cocoa powder, dark, milk, chips): HMTc standard. Institute of Contaminant Standards.

© 2026 Institute of Contaminant Standards / Heavy Metal Certified. All rights reserved.

The literature baseline for every analyte is maintained independently at the Heavy Metal Index. This certification standard applies those findings; the two are kept editorially separate by design.