CHOCOLATE SCIENTIST

Hawke's Bay Tribune, Volume XXII, Issue 89, 30 March 1932, Page 5

CHOCOLATE SCIENTIST

WHY “SOFT CENTRES” BURST MEN WHO GIVE THEIR LIVES TO SWEETS. INTERESTING RESEARCH WORK. (From a Correspondent.) London, Feb. 17. Scientists have recently announced a discovery which will enable British chocolates to keep their pristine freshness while foreign chocolates look stale and musty.

Few people know that chocolates are an object of serious scientific study. There is, in fact, an important Research Association with laboratories and a miniature factory an Camden Town (almost under the shadow of Holloway Jail) devoted wholly to the study oi chocolates, confectionery and jam.

When 1 visited the laboratories yesterday to hear the story of this new discovery, 1 found white-coated scientists probing the interiors of chocolate biscuits. Others were measuring with the aid of complicated electrical devices, the acidity of fruit juice. Another was carefully boiling sweets in a small copper vessel over a Bunsen burner.

CHOCOLATES THAT “BLOOM.” The director of the body rejoicing in the name of the British Association ol Research for the Cocoa, Chocolate, Sugar, Confectionery and Jam Trades (winch is supported by the manufacturers themselves, and receives Irom the British Government’s Department of Scientific and Industrial Research) explained to me the problem of “bloom”. Chocolates, he said, sometunes look stale within a few days of their birth. A greyish coating settles over the surface and the beauty of the chocolate is seriously blemished. Scientists got to work and found that “bloom” was due to a film of minute fat crystals. They also found why this film was formed and laid down a set of conditions during manufacture which pic jilted its appearance. These instructions are now being folic red by all the leading manufacturers, and chocolates no longer bloom in their boxes—always provided that they avoid very high temperature during storage or transport. “We were gratified to see a letter in a foreign paper recently,” Mr Macara told me, “saying that the British evidently had some trade secret which avoided “bloom.” The writer had noticed that British chocolates exported to the Argentine were free from this defect, and that our manufacturers were finding tins a considerable trade advantage.”

WHY DO SOFT CENTRES BURST? Chocolates with soft centres—known to the trade as “fondants,”—have a little weakness. They sometimes burst. This is another serious scientific problem. Like the bloom bother, it has now been solved, and the bang of the “fondants” is no longer heard in the factory. Fondants are crystallised in syrup, which tends to get discoloured after it has been used once or twice. The Camden Town experts have found a way of preventing this so that the syrup can be used repeatedly without discolouration. This saves the industry—a very important one in Britain —large sums. Ultra-violet rays are used in a modern laboratory to probe the inner mysteries of the bull’s eye and the marron glace. I was shown a row of test tubes being bathed in these penetrating rays. They are used to find out whether certain substances in manufactured food are quite genuine or whether they are no better than they should be. Genuine fats, for example, give a palo golden fluoressence, but their substitutes may give a pale blue or opal-like fluorescence under the violet rays.

HELP FOR EMPIRE PRODUCERS. These chocolate scientists of Camden Town are helping Empire producers as well as British manufacturers. Over half the world’s supply of cacao (the correct name for raw cocoa) come from the Gold Coast and largo quantities are grown in Trinidad, Nigeria and other countries. One of the present tasks of science is to improve the quality of cacao, which often suffers severely from mould and insect attacks. Chemists and mycologists are at work in West Africa trying to reduce moulds by improving conditions of drying and storage. Entomologists, armed with fumigating apparatus, meet the cargoes as they arrive at the London and Liverpool docks to wage war on the cocoa moth, Ephestia, which attacks the raw beans in warehouses and factories.

The importance of this work is such that the Empire Marketing Board has established at Slough a Stored. Products Research Laboratory to study these and other stowaways who sneak free board and lodging in raw foodstuffs. New methods of fumigation for cacao were recently tried out in barges in the Thames with considerable success.

The quality of cacao has already improved noticeably since science was called in. The importance of this work can be explained in one word: price. If scientific methods of controlling faults in raw products are successful, they will ultimately mean that a better price can be paid to producers for their goods.

CANDIED PEEL PROBLEMS. In the little experimental factory attached to the laboratories, all sorts of improvements are being tested. Citron peels, for instance, are at present imported chiefly from foreign countries. Barrels of peel give testimony to the studies which have been undertaken to find the best and cheapest methods of preserving peel which Empire countries might supply.

But the Camden Town staff is not only concerned with why sweets go to the bad. Jam making is another study. Jara sometimes ferments as a result of the growth of yeasts. Ways and means of nipping yeasts in the bud have been worked out. Chemists are at work in another section on a study of pectin, a by-product of fruit used to make jams and jellies set firmly. Another question which scientists looked into, at the the manufacturers’ request, was whether any use could be made of unwanted fruit stones.

Sausage rolls and bottled- tongues also come under the eagle eye of Mr Macara’s staff. Better methods of preserving mincemeat and helping sausages to keep their youth are already to the credit of the association. But I could find no one looking into the composition of hot, dogs—or even taking the gilt off- th®- gingerbread.