What about heavy metals in cacao?

Power Super Foods have the responsibility to guarantee that all of our cacao products comply with Australian Food Standards regulations. We take your health and wellbeing seriously and want you (and ourselves) to only have the cleanest and best quality ingredients and foods. We always follow best practice for efficacy, safety and premium quality.

Cadmium

The  Australian Food Standards legislation has an upper maximum limit for Cadmium of 0.5 mg/kg.  (The legislation is higher at 0.6 for cacao powder in Europe and California).

Cadmium is a naturally occurring mineral present in the soils around the world including Australia and it can be absorbed by plants grown in that soil. Cadmium is found in a variety of common foods most of us consume daily including for example peanuts, meat, wine, grapes, scallops, rice, wheat and some root vegetables.  Mostly the issue of cadmium occurs in cacao powder as the other cacao products such as beans, nibs and ceremonial cacao paste contain cacao butter (at roughly 50%) and cacao butter does not contain cadmium. However, our nibs and ceremonial grade pastes are also tested and fall below the legislated limit of 0.5.

As some cacao beans have cadmium levels over what is considered safe (often but not always it is Peruvian) we test ours and then blend them with lower cadmium beans to ensure the final product is within the safe limits. This is of course more effort and cost but we want to adhere to the highest product safety standards.

Our latest batch of Cacao Gold Powder has cadmium at 0.38 mg/kg and Cacao Powder (illustrated pack) at 0.41 mg/kg. 

Our suppliers are very aware of the different legislations worldwide. We would never import and sell cacao products in Australia exceeding the legislated limits.

Lead

Lead is also prevalent in many other foods we consume daily. The lead content in cacao is not regulated in Australia. Our cacao suppliers in South America run lead analysis tests in a 2 year period. The current readings are:

Minimum of <0.001mg/kg 
Max of 0.095mg/kg
Average: 0.019 mg/kg 

Absorption of heavy metals is also largely dependent on the health and quality of our diets.

If you have any further questions please reach out to our team.