How recent approaches to improve the nutritional quality of chocolate affect processing and consumer acceptance

Abstract

Increased awareness of health and wellness drives demand for sustainable food, creating opportunities to develop new products. Chocolate is a very popular treat worldwide, therefore, enriching recipes that lead to chocolate-based functional foods is an attractive option. As a result, in the last years, scientists and industrial companies have made increasing efforts to modify formulations to improve chocolate nutritional profile, by reducing the content of sugars and saturated fats or by adding components with well-defined physiological effects without affecting the sensory and texture properties. In this paper, we present how different modification strategies were reconciled with manufacturing process, bloom resistance, and heat stability to maintain consumer acceptability, which still remains a major challenge to be faced by the food industry.