Cocoa Cake (Press Cake)

Natural & alkalised press cake — 10-12% and 20-22% fat

Cocoa cake is the half-way product between liquor and powder. When a grinder presses cocoa liquor, the butter runs off and a hard disc of cocoa solids is left in the press; that disc is the cake. It is usually broken into kibbled pieces, stored by fat content and degree of alkalisation, blended and then pulverised into cocoa powder. The two commercial fat grades are low fat, around 10 to 12% residual cocoa butter, and high fat, around 20 to 22%, and the grade is set in the press, not afterwards. Like powder, cake is supplied natural or alkalised: alkalisation darkens the colour and changes how the finished powder disperses and tastes, and it changes the texture of the cake itself, which matters to the mill that has to grind it. Customs classify it with cocoa paste as wholly or partly defatted (HS 1803.20). UN Comtrade shows USD 584 million of HS 1803.20 exports in 2024, led by Indonesia (33.1%), Ghana (15.4%), Malaysia (14.8%) and the Netherlands (10.4%), with Nigeria, Germany and Peru behind; the heading 1803 as a whole, paste and cake together, was USD 6.27 billion.

Buy cake instead of powder when you run your own pulveriser and want to control fineness, blend and alkalisation profile at your mill, or when you are a powder producer balancing your own press output. Buy powder when you simply need an ingredient. Because cake comes out of the same press as butter, its price moves with the butter-powder ratio: when butter demand is strong, cake and powder cheapen, and the reverse. Contract on fat content, pH and alkalisation, colour, moisture, shell content, and microbiology, and ask for a certificate of analysis on each lot. For the EU, cocoa and cocoa products carry maximum levels for polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (benzo(a)pyrene 5.0 µg/kg fat) under Regulation (EU) 2023/915, and the cadmium maximum of 0.60 mg/kg applies to cocoa powder sold to the final consumer or used in sweetened cocoa powder, so buyers milling cake for those uses screen cadmium at the cake stage; cocoa powder also has an ochratoxin A maximum of 3.0 µg/kg. Halal and kosher certificates are available from certified grinders. Under the EU Deforestation Regulation, cocoa paste and cake (HS 1803) are in scope from 30 December 2026 for large and medium operators and traders and from 30 June 2027 for micro and small operators; the operator that first places the product on the EU market files a due diligence statement with plot geolocation of the beans. Pricing references the ICE cocoa futures (New York in USD, London in sterling) and the butter ratio, and is quoted per lot. CBIL brokers cocoa cake against fat content, alkalisation, pH, colour and microbiology, in lined bags and bulk bags, on FOB, CFR and CIF terms.

Excluded origins are not offered, including product re-exported, blended or re-processed through a third country. Every lot moves with a certificate of origin naming the producing plant, mine or grower country, and nothing is quoted before the seller and loading point are known.