Food Labelling · Chocolate · Fats and Oils · Taiwan · East Asia · ComparisonRules read 15 October 2026
Seven products, one line
What May Be Called Chocolate
Dark, milk, white and ruby chocolate, cocoa butter itself, and the palm- and coconut-based products that stand in for it sit next to each other on a shelf, and only the first four may be sold as chocolate. What separates them is not taste or quality but a single number: how much fat other than cocoa butter a product may contain. Taiwan, the European Union and the international standard all put it at 5%; the United States puts it at zero. The chemistry underneath that number is why the rule exists at all — and it is also why the distinction a shelf invites between “palm” and “coconut” products is mostly not a distinction.
What Happened
One clause, written down in three places, and refused in a fourth What the rules say, read at the regulators' own publications on 15 October 2026.
- 5%Added vegetable fat a chocolate may carry in Taiwan, the EU and Codex
- 0%The same allowance in the United States, in any cacao product
- 6Fats on the EU’s closed list — and palm-kernel oil is not one of them
- 4 / 7Of the seven products compared here that may be sold as chocolate
| Standing | What | Where it is established |
|---|---|---|
| Confirmed | Taiwan: a product with more than 5% added vegetable fat may not use 巧克力 as its product name, and the old 「代可可脂」 labelling was deleted. In force since 1 January 2022. | The regulator’s own question-and-answer sheet, which states the amendment in three points. |
| Confirmed | The 5% clause is almost word for word the same in the international standard and in the EU Directive: the same ceiling, the same deduction of other added foodstuffs, and the same rule that it may not reduce the minimum cocoa content. | Codex CXS 87-1981 and Directive 2000/36/EC, Article 2, both read in full. |
| Confirmed | The United States admits no non-cacao vegetable fat into any cacao product. A product that uses one is sold under a different standardised name — “sweet cocoa and vegetable fat coating”. | 21 CFR Part 163, including §163.150, which is the coating’s own standard. |
| Confirmed | The US chocolate standards were amended on 13 October 2026, two days before this was written. The change permits salt substitutes; it does not touch the fat rule. | The Federal Register rule the regulations themselves cross-reference, effective 14 December 2026. |
| Confirmed | A widely circulated copy of Taiwan’s rule is the superseded 2017 text. It still requires 「代可可脂」 before the name — the exact provision the amendment deleted — so anyone checking against it reaches the opposite conclusion. | Both documents read side by side: the superseded text is six points long and covers unfilled solids only. |
| Not public | What Singapore and Malaysia require. Both regulators’ texts were refused by their hosts, so neither jurisdiction’s figures are stated here or in the slides. | Two hosts, four attempts, HTTP 403 each time. The gap is named rather than filled from secondary summaries. |
What the line actually governs
A name. A coating made with palm-kernel or coconut fat is a lawful food sold under a lawful name; what the rule decides is which word may appear on the front of the packet.
And what it does not
Quality, or the word wherever it appears. Taiwan’s own regulator says ice cream and bread fall outside the rule, so 「巧克力冰淇淋」 stays lawful whatever fat its cocoa component uses.
Timeline
Forty-five years from the international standard to this month’s amendment Every row is a dated document. The fat chemistry has no date, which is why it is in the next section.
- 1981The international standard sets the clause everyone else will copy: vegetable fats other than cocoa butter shall not exceed 5% of the finished product, and may not reduce the minimum cocoa content.
- 1993The United States consolidates its cacao-product standards. They admit no non-cacao vegetable fat then, and they still do not.
- 2000The EU Directive takes the 5% clause and adds a closed list: six named fats, all non-lauric, plus one exception permitting coconut oil in chocolate for ice cream.
- 2017Taiwan’s first chocolate-naming rule takes effect. A product over 5% may still be sold as 「代可可脂巧克力」, and filled products are outside its scope.
- Jul 2020A letter compares coconut oil and palm oil by threatened species per tonne. An erratum follows six weeks later, and the ordering reverses when the same data are taken per unit area.
- 2 Mar 2021Taiwan announces the amendment: filled chocolate must be at least 25% chocolate, spreads and syrups get their own floor, and the 代可可脂 labelling is deleted.
- 1 Jan 2022It takes effect. From this date a product over 5% must be renamed, and mislabelling carries NT$30,000 to 3,000,000, false labelling NT$40,000 to 4,000,000.
- Jun 2022The largest cocoa-flavanol trial reports. Its primary endpoint does not reach significance; cardiovascular death falls 27%. The intervention was an extract, not chocolate.
- Aug 2026The palm-oil certification body reports 16.2 million tonnes sold in 2025, 20% of global supply. The “nearly 40%” that circulates is member capacity, not sales.
- 13 Oct 2026The US chocolate standards are amended, effective 14 December 2026. The change is salt substitutes. The prohibition on non-cacao vegetable fat is untouched.
- 30 Dec 2026The EU’s deforestation regulation starts applying to large and medium operators; other micro and small operators follow on 30 June 2027. Cocoa and palm oil are both in scope.
The Argument
“Palm” and “coconut” are mostly the same fat, and the EU list says which is not The regulation is the chemistry written down, which is why reading the annex explains the shelf.
Cocoa butter behaves the way it does because its triglycerides are symmetrical — POP, POS and SOS, in the trade’s shorthand. That symmetry is why it melts over a narrow range just below body temperature, why it has to be tempered into one crystal form out of six to set with gloss and snap, and why it blooms grey when that form slips.
Read the EU’s Annex II and you find that chemistry restated as law. A permitted substitute must be non-lauric, rich in symmetrical monounsaturated triglycerides of the POP, POS and SOS type, miscible with cocoa butter and compatible with its physical properties, and obtained only by refining and/or fractionation — which expressly excludes enzymatic modification of the triglyceride structure. Six fats qualify: illipe, palm-oil, sal, shea, kokum gurgi and mango kernel. The list is not a trade concession dressed as a standard; it is the set of fats that behave like the one they replace.
Which is where the shelf misleads. The cheap coatings use lauric fats: palm-kernel oil and coconut oil, which are chemically close cousins. They need no tempering and they cost less, and they form eutectics with cocoa butter, so past roughly 5% of other fat they soften and bloom. So “palm-based” and “coconut-based” products are usually the same class of thing. The fat that is genuinely different is palm fruit oil, from the flesh rather than the seed of the same tree — and that is the one sitting at number two on the EU’s permitted list. One word, “palm”, covers both the fat allowed inside chocolate and the fat that puts a product outside the definition.
The EU’s one exception lands exactly where you would expect it to. After the six fats, the annex adds that Member States may allow coconut oil in chocolate used for the manufacture of ice cream and similar frozen products. The ice-cream shell is the single commonest use for a coconut-based coating, and it is the one place the Directive makes room for it.
- 32–35°CCocoa butter’s melting range — narrow, and just below body temperature
- 6Fats on the EU’s list; palm fruit oil is on it, palm-kernel oil is not
- 1Exception for coconut oil — and it is for ice-cream chocolate
| Class | Type | Typical source | Tempering | With cocoa butter |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| CBE — equivalent | non-lauric | palm mid-fraction, shea, sal, illipe | required | any proportion |
| CBR — replacer | non-lauric | fractionated or hydrogenated palm, soy, cottonseed | not required | partial |
| CBS — substitute | lauric | palm-kernel oil, coconut oil | not required | poor — softens and blooms |
What Others Add
The seven, the minimums, and what the health and sustainability figures are Minimums are Taiwan’s, which match Codex and the EU for the three classic types.
| Product | Main fat | Minimum cocoa | May be called chocolate |
|---|---|---|---|
| Dark | cocoa butter | total cocoa solids ≥35%, cocoa butter ≥18%, fat-free cocoa solids ≥14% | yes |
| Milk | cocoa butter + milk fat | total cocoa solids ≥25%, fat-free cocoa solids ≥2.5%, milk solids ≥12% | yes |
| White | cocoa butter + milk fat | cocoa butter ≥20%, milk solids ≥14%; no fat-free cocoa solids | yes |
| Ruby | cocoa butter + milk fat | close to milk chocolate, with citric acid | in the EU yes; in the US on a temporary permit, with no standard of identity |
| Cocoa butter | 100% cocoa butter | — | no — it is an ingredient, not a chocolate |
| Palm-based compound | palm-kernel oil, or palm fractions | usually flavoured with cocoa powder; little or no cocoa butter | no, once vegetable fat passes 5% |
| Coconut-based compound | coconut oil or coconut stearin | as above | no; the EU’s one exception is ice-cream chocolate |
On the label
The wording is narrower than you have been told
- Under 5%, Taiwan requires 「添加植物油」 near the name, or the specific oil as 「添加○○油」. The widely repeated 「可可脂中添加植物油」 is not the current wording.
- The EU’s statement must be in the same field of vision as the ingredients, separated from them, in bold and at least as large, with the sales name nearby.
- A product that meets the standard may still choose another name, so “not called chocolate” does not by itself mean “not chocolate”.
Health
The big trial tested an extract, not chocolate
- Cocoa polyphenols sit in the fat-free cocoa solids, so the ordering follows the composition table: dark, then ruby and milk, then white and the compounds.
- The primary endpoint, total cardiovascular events, gave a hazard ratio of 0.90 (95% CI 0.78–1.02) and did not reach significance. Cardiovascular death fell 27%.
- The dose was 500 mg of flavanols a day with no sugar and no fat. Eating that much flavanol as chocolate means eating what comes with it.
Sustainability
Two figures that are not what they are quoted as
- Certified sustainable palm oil was 20% of global supply in 2025, at 16.2 million tonnes sold. The “nearly 40%” is member capacity, 31.4 million tonnes.
- The coconut-versus-palm biodiversity comparison is a Letter with a published erratum, and its ordering reverses when the data are taken per unit area.
- From 30 December 2026 the EU requires proof that cocoa and palm oil caused no deforestation after 2020; other micro and small operators follow in June 2027.
| Also worth knowing | Detail |
|---|---|
| Stricter is not one axis | The United States admits no vegetable fat at all — and sets its milk-chocolate floor at 10% chocolate liquor, against 25% total cocoa solids in Taiwan and the EU. Stricter on fat, looser on cocoa. |
| The word outside the product | Taiwan’s regulator says plainly that ice cream and bread are outside the rule, so 「巧克力冰淇淋」 and 「巧克力麵包」 stay lawful names. The rule governs chocolate, not the word everywhere it appears. |
| What is not carried here | Singapore’s and Malaysia’s rules, the Malaysian cocoa-industry figures, ruby chocolate’s process, and a current cocoa price. Each rests on a source that could not be read, and none is filled in from a summary. |
Conclusion
Which of the seven suits which job A compound is the right answer to some questions. It is never the right answer to “is this chocolate”.
Eating it
Dark, and read the fat line
- Best at: flavour and polyphenols, which both live in the cocoa solids. A stated total-cocoa percentage is itself a signal, because compounds rarely carry one.
- White chocolate and cocoa butter have essentially no cocoa polyphenols, and that is a fact about composition rather than a criticism.
- The trade-off: it melts in a warm room, it costs more, and no trial supports eating more of it for your heart.
Coating and baking
A compound, and call it what it is
- Best at: setting without tempering, holding up in heat, and costing little. On an ice-cream shell in a tropical climate it is the sensible choice, not the cheap one.
- The EU evidently agrees: its single coconut-oil exception is written for exactly that product.
- The trade-off: the name. Over 5% it may not be called chocolate in Taiwan, and in the US it may not be called chocolate at all — and it cannot be mixed with real chocolate, because the two fats fight.
Making it
A CBE if the name has to survive
- Best at: keeping the word. Up to 5%, a listed equivalent is the only substitution that leaves a product still legally chocolate outside the United States.
- It mixes with cocoa butter in any proportion, because it was chosen for exactly that property.
- The trade-off: it still has to be tempered, it is not cheap, and in the United States it is not an option at any percentage.
Settled
The 5% line is the same line in Taiwan, the EU and the international standard, and the United States sets it at zero. The minimum cocoa contents are published, and so are the penalties for getting the name wrong.
Open
What two of the region’s regulators require, because neither text could be read; ruby chocolate’s process, which is a trade secret; and whether any of the health claims survives being eaten as food rather than taken as an extract.
Hold this loosely
Any ranking of the seven. The rule decides a name, not a quality, and a coating that keeps its shape on a hot day is doing its job. What is worth holding firmly is the difference between the two, and which one a packet is claiming.
- Read the product name first, then the words beside it. A name that is not simply 「巧克力」 — a flavour, a coating, a chocolatey — has usually been chosen because the plain word was not available.
- In the ingredients, look for where the fat comes from. Cocoa butter and cocoa mass mean chocolate; palm-kernel oil, coconut oil, hydrogenated or unnamed vegetable fat high in the list means a compound. Cocoa powder with no cocoa butter all but settles it.
- Do not read “palm” as one thing. Palm fruit oil is on the EU’s permitted list; palm-kernel oil is not, and is chemically the same sort of fat as coconut oil. The word on the packet does not tell you which.
- Treat an undated summary of a labelling rule as out of date until it proves otherwise. The regulation file most often passed around for Taiwan is the superseded text, and it says the opposite of the rule now in force.
Quick notes
- Taiwan’s Food and Drug Administration, 巧克力之品名及標示規定問答集, revised 2 Mar 2021, and the superseded 2017 text of the regulation itself
- the Ministry of Health and Welfare’s announcement of the amendment, 2 Mar 2021
- 21 CFR Part 163 at the eCFR, and the Federal Register rule ‘Use of Salt Substitutes To Reduce the Sodium Content in Standardized Foods’, 13 Oct 2026
- Codex standard CXS 87-1981 at the FAO
- Directive 2000/36/EC, Article 2 and Annex II, at legislation.gov.uk
- Sesso and colleagues on the COSMOS trial, American Journal of Clinical Nutrition 115(6), 2022
- Meijaard and colleagues, Current Biology 30(13), 2020, with its erratum at 30(16)
- the Roundtable on Sustainable Palm Oil’s 2026 impact report
- and the European Commission on the deforestation regulation’s product scope. All read 15 Oct 2026.