Most dark chocolate has lead and cadmium in it. Some of it isn't even legally chocolate
Consumer Reports found lead or cadmium above California's limits in 23 of 28 dark chocolate bars. Under FDA rules, swap the cocoa butter for palm oil and it isn't legally chocolate at all.
Emily Harper
Swap the cocoa butter in a chocolate bar for palm oil and, legally, it stops being chocolate. That's not a marketing distinction - it's a federal one, and most people checking a wrapper right now are actually searching for something else entirely: whether the bar in their hand has lead or cadmium in it.
What the FDA actually requires to call it "chocolate"
Under 21 CFR 163.123, sweet chocolate has to be at least 15% chocolate liquor by weight, and semisweet or bittersweet chocolate at least 35%. Milk chocolate needs at least 10% chocolate liquor, plus a minimum of 12% total milk solids and 3.39% milkfat. White chocolate has to carry at least 20% cacao fat. Added vegetable fats like palm oil aren't permitted in any of those categories - miss the line and, legally, what you're holding is a "compound coating" or a "confectionery item," not chocolate. Palm and shea versions even get their own FDA name for it: "sweet cocoa and vegetable fat coating." None of that is illegal to sell. It just isn't allowed to say "chocolate" on the front unqualified, which is exactly what a lot of coating-based products lean on shoppers not checking.
What's actually in the bars that do qualify
Whether a bar clears the legal bar for "chocolate" says nothing about what else is in it. Consumer Reports tested 28 dark chocolate bars - including Hershey's, Dove, Ghirardelli and Lindt - for lead and cadmium, and found detectable levels of at least one in all 28. For 23 of them, a single ounce exceeded California's maximum allowable dose levels: 0.5 micrograms a day for lead, 4.1 micrograms for cadmium. Hershey's Special Dark came in worst, at 265% of the lead limit in a single ounce. Only five bars tested low in both metals: one each from Mast and Taza, two from Ghirardelli, and one from Valrhona. Cadmium gets absorbed from the soil the cacao tree grows in; lead is mostly picked up after harvest, during drying and transport on open surfaces. A single ounce of even the highest-metal bar in the test is unlikely to do anything on its own - the risk is repeated exposure over years, which is a different question than "is this bar dangerous today."
The "independent" name on the wrapper usually isn't
A lot of the labels that read as small or heritage are neither anymore. Green & Black's was bought by Cadbury in 2005 and passed to Mondelez when Mondelez acquired Cadbury in 2010; Mondelez separately bought the rest of Hu in 2021 for about $229 million. Ghirardelli has been owned by Lindt & Sprüngli since 1998. Theo Chocolate, long marketed on its Seattle bean-to-bar factory, merged into American Licorice Company in 2023 and shut that factory down, citing rising manufacturing and supply-chain costs; its flagship Seattle store closed for good in early 2025. None of that makes the chocolate worse by itself. It does mean the story on the wrapper - family-run, small-batch, independent - is frequently a few acquisitions out of date.
Big Chocolate is quietly funding a cocoa-free backup plan
Cocoa prices went from under $3,000 a ton to roughly $12,000 in 2024-2025, and the biggest names in chocolate have responded by investing in ways to make chocolate without farming any actual cacao. Mondelez's venture arm put $4.5 million into Celleste Bio, an Israeli startup growing cocoa butter from cultured plant cells, and has already produced chocolate bars using its lab-grown cocoa butter. Lindt & Sprüngli, alongside Puratos's venture arm Sparkalis, put roughly $5.6 million into Food Brewer, a Swiss startup using the same plant-cell-culture approach. Puratos separately partnered with California Cultured to bring cell-cultured cocoa, grown in steel tanks rather than on a farm, to professional chocolatiers in the US. And Mars has gone further than lab-grown cocoa - it's testing a cocoa-free chocolate substitute called ChoViva, made from fermented sunflower and grape seeds by German startup Planet A Foods, in a Balisto trail mix pilot. None of this is on shelves at scale yet, but it tells you how seriously the largest chocolate makers are hedging against the crop they've built their entire businesses on.
Six brands that clear both bars
These didn't show up in a lawsuit, an acquisition filing, or a lab test flagged above the limit:
- Raaka - makes bars from unroasted cacao and publishes its own heavy-metal test results rather than waiting for someone else to test them.
- Equal Exchange - worker-owned co-op founded in 1986, buying cacao, coffee and other goods only from small-farmer cooperatives.
- Mast - still run by the Mast brothers, and one of only five bars in the Consumer Reports test with low levels of both lead and cadmium.
- Pascha - family-operated, USDA Organic, and made in a facility free of all top allergens, not just the ones required by law.
- Taza - stone-ground, USDA Organic, and Direct Trade-certified with every farm it buys from, a certification its founder helped create.
- Beyond Good - founder-led, and manufactures its bars in Madagascar itself rather than shipping raw cacao out and finished chocolate back in.
What this actually tells you
- "Chocolate" on the front of the package is a compositional claim, not just a flavor one. If the fat isn't cocoa butter, federal rules say it can't be called chocolate without qualification - check the ingredient list, not the front label.
- Passing the legal definition and passing a heavy-metal test are two separate bars, and a product can clear one while failing the other. Hershey's Special Dark is legally chocolate and still tested worst for lead.
- A brand's origin story has a shelf life. "Founded by two guys in Brooklyn" or "family-run since [year]" is true right up until an acquisition, and several of the names people reach for as the ethical choice have already had one.
Before you buy the next bar, scan it on Tallow - it flags seed oils, additives and lab-tested contaminants on the product itself, so you're not relying on the wrapper to tell you the whole story.
Figures and facts in this post are sourced from FDA regulations, Consumer Reports' published testing, and the press coverage linked above, current as of the time of writing. This is not medical advice.