“Ceremonial grade” has no legal or regulatory definition anywhere in the world. It tells you how a seller hopes you will use the cacao, not a standard anyone has tested. We suggest looking past the label to what can be checked: the farm it came from, the ingredient list, how it was processed, and whether it has been tested for heavy metals.
The phrase sounds like a grading system, the kind coffee and olive oil have. It is not one. No authority tastes cacao and awards it ceremonial status.
Who decides what counts as ceremonial grade?
The seller does. Any brand can call its cacao ceremonial grade, and there is no independent standard to hold it to. France, by contrast, reserves the name “pâte de cacao” for pure cacao paste and nothing else (DGCCRF).
Most brands that use the term mean something sincere by it: whole cacao paste, gently processed, often from a named origin. But because the words are not regulated, they promise none of it.
Ceremonial grade vs culinary grade
“Culinary grade” is sometimes used for cacao meant for baking or cooking, to suggest a lower quality than ceremonial grade. Like ceremonial grade, it has no legal meaning.
The differences that matter live in how cacao is grown and processed, and those you can check.
Five things to check instead
- Origin. Is the cacao named to a country, a region, or better still a single farm or estate?
- Ingredients. For pure cacao, there should be one ingredient. For chocolate, a short list you recognise.
- Processing. Has it been treated with alkali? In the US this must be labelled “processed with alkali” (21 CFR 163). Unalkalised cacao keeps more of its natural character.
- Testing. Does the brand test for heavy metals such as cadmium and lead, and will it share the results? In the EU, chocolate with 50% or more total dry cocoa solids has a legal cadmium limit of 0.80mg per kg (Regulation (EU) 2023/915).
- People. Can the brand tell you who grew the cacao and how they were paid?
What Bantu Chocolate can tell you
We do not use the words ceremonial grade. We would rather answer the five questions above:
- Origin: one family-owned agroforestry estate in Cameroon.
- Ingredients: single-estate cacao, cocoa butter and raw, organic coconut blossom sugar, with natural botanicals in some collections. No emulsifiers, no palm oil.
- People: we pay for our cacao at a price worked out from the Anker Living Wage for rural Cameroon. See how it compares.
- Testing: we are implementing routine testing for cadmium and lead. See our FAQs for detail.
Taste it for yourself in our darkest bar, Noire 73%. Read where the ceremonial cacao tradition comes from in is ceremonial cacao bean-to-bar?
FAQs
Ceremonial Grade Cacao
No. No country defines “ceremonial grade”, so any seller can use the term.
Both are marketing labels rather than standards. Neither guarantees origin, processing or testing.
Look for a named farm or estate, a single ingredient, no alkali processing, published heavy metal testing, and a brand that can tell you how the growers were paid.
Only if the brand chooses to test it. Ask for the laboratory summary before you buy.
Written by Bantu Chocolate.
