Almost all chocolate makers enrobe nuts, and they are likely to use the same machines for products without nuts and also to draw back any excess chocolate for other purposes, such as bars that on the face of it have no nut content at all. So it is very likely that all fine chocolate contains nut oil of some kind, unless it is specifically stated otherwise on the wrapper.

There is a UK company called Kinnerton who have started to specialise in nut free chocolate – check out their whacky web site at http://www.kinnerton.com/nutfree.html. I’ve seen their bars in UK supermarkets and they are not bad, though 50% is low for a dark chocolate. However it is nut, dairy, gluten and egg free (egg!). When you read the lengths they have had to go to to ensure that the bars are nut free you can appreciate why producing allergy free chocolate is going to be a huge challenge for the industry. I’m hoping we can do a feature on them some time and maybe stock their bars in the shop as well.

Martin Christy
Editor
http://www.seventypercent.com

Well you could be right masur – I have a friend with a very serious (i.e. potentially fatal) nut allergy who has been eating Valrhona for years without any problems.

Valrhona would not give us any guarantees when we asked though, and when their bars were made available in an upmarket UK supermarket for a while, the UK wholesaler had to add ‘may contain traces of nuts’ labels to the bars.

So they may be ok, but this is entirely at the consumer’s own risk!

By the way masur, what’s your source? It’s notoriously difficult to get to see Valrhona’s manufacturing process, so maybe you can tell us more?

Martin Christy
Editor
http://www.seventypercent.com

Hi
l have worked for Kinnerton and my husband does still.
they are a comapny which are going through a lot of changes for the better.l can vouch that they are very strick with their nut free policy. Although they make chcocolate for the mass market they are now starting to ‘posh chocs’ but really who are they trying to kid.
Their range of Coco deli is a step into this but Oh dear….need l say more!
(l do think that the name is also a little to close for comfort with the name of my business only a few miles away.The Chocolate Deli.)

D Skipper

Hi,

from Finland comes Dammenberg ([url]http://www.dammenberg.fi[/url]). They say all their chocolate products are nut-free and gluten-free. And they print it on the front of their chocolate boxes, so I think they realy don’t contain any nuts.

I don’t know if they are avaible outside Finland.

Arne

http://www.theobroma-cacao.de

You can also get from a new place that is selling nut free-dairy free chocolate. So far they are selling only truffles.
[url]www.premiumchocolatiers.com[/url]

yochy

If you’re in Canada, Choklat (www.SoChoklat.com) makes all of our chocolate from the bean, and bars completely nut free. No nuts ever enter our refiners.

Brad Churchill
Choklat
http://www.SoChoklat.com