We had our chocolate lab-tested for heavy metals. Here are the results.
In 2022, Consumer Reports tested popular dark chocolate bars and found measurable lead and cadmium in many of them. It was a wake-up call for chocolate lovers, and a fair question for every chocolate maker: what’s in yours?
We wanted to answer that with numbers, not promises. So we sent our chocolate to an independent laboratory.
What we tested
One sample of our 100% dark chocolate, made from Ecuador beans, roasted, hand-shelled and stone-ground in our shop. Advanced Laboratories, an FDA-registered lab, tested it for four heavy metals in January 2025.
The results
| Metal | Result |
|---|---|
| Lead | 0.004 ppm |
| Mercury | 0.003 ppm |
| Arsenic | 0.051 ppm |
| Cadmium | 0.262 ppm |
(ppm means parts per million, or micrograms per gram of chocolate.)
Read the full lab certificate (PDF) → (uploaded PDF)
What the numbers mean
Lead: 0.004 ppm. This is the result we’re proudest of. Lead in chocolate mostly comes from soil and dust that settle on the outside of the beans as they dry in the open air. It collects on the shell.
We shell every bean by hand, so only the clean nib goes into our chocolate. One test can’t prove cause and effect, but this is exactly the result you’d hope hand-shelling would deliver.
Mercury and arsenic were present only in trace amounts.
Cadmium: 0.262 ppm. We want to be straightforward about this one. Cadmium is different from lead: the cacao tree absorbs it from the soil as it grows, so it sits inside the bean, not on the shell. No amount of shelling removes it. Our result is about a third of the European Union’s legal limit for dark chocolate (0.8 ppm). How much cadmium a bean carries depends mostly on where it was grown, and that’s something we keep in mind when choosing our beans.
Why serving size matters
Consumer Reports measured chocolate against California’s daily limits: 0.5 micrograms of lead and 4.1 micrograms of cadmium, for a 1-ounce serving.
Serving Lead Cadmium
One square (1.2 g) 1% of the limit 8% of the limit
Whole 1-ounce bar 23% of the limit 181% of the limit
We’ve always said our chocolate is meant to be tasted one square at a time. That’s how we enjoy it ourselves.
Our 85% bars contain 15% unrefined sugar, so their metal content should be about 15% lower than this 100% sample.
Why we’re sharing everything
The lab certificate is posted in full, including the number that isn’t our best. We’d rather you see the whole picture than a selected part of it. The lab notes that results apply to the sample tested, so we plan to test again regularly.
Our whole approach rests on one idea: nothing hidden. That goes for our ingredients, our process, and now our lab results.
Taste it for yourself
Two ingredients, cacao and unrefined sugar, with every bean shelled by hand. Come by the shop, buy a bar, and ask us anything.
Ridgewood Chocolate
6002 Catalpa Ave, Ridgewood, Queens
Monday to Saturday, 11am to 8pm
Why we shell every bean by hand → (Old way)
See how every bar is made → (process pure)
