primary processing: stage 2
Chocolate is not just ground-up cocoa beans. Raw cocoa beans taste very bitter, and must be processed before they can be used to make chocolate products.
Cocoa beans arriving by ship in Liverpool are transported to Cadbury’s purpose-built cocoa bean processing factory at Chirk, North Wales. Chirk operates 24 hours a day, seven days a week to process 50,000 tonnes of cocoa beans each year.
When the beans arrive at the factory, they are emptied out onto a moving belt, sorted and cleaned to remove dust and stones.
The beans move through a continuous roaster (a revolving drum with hot air passing through it). The actual roasting time depends on whether the end use is for cocoa or chocolate. During roasting, the shells of the cocoa beans become brittle. The cocoa beans darken in colour and acquire their distinctive chocolate flavour and aroma. This completes the process of flavour development begun with the process of fermentation on the farm.
The beans are broken down (kibbled) into smaller pieces (nibs). The broken shells are blown away (winnowing). The nibs are then ground down into a thick, chocolate-coloured liquid called cocoa mass or liquor, which is rich in cocoa butter. This is one of the main ingredients of all chocolate products.
