Food Lipids: Chemistry, Nutrition, and Biotechnology

occurs esterified at the sn-2 position of the various triglycerides, with the sn-1 and
sn-3 positions containing the esterified palmitic or stearic acids. This specificity results
in the presence of three predominant structured triglycerides: POP, POS, and
SOS. These three triglyceride types make up more than 80% of the triglycerides
found in cocoa butter. These specific triglycerides, which resemble each other very
closely, provide cocoa butter with its unique solids profile and desirable melting
characteristic.
Going back to the basic issue, however, cocoa butter is expensive, and supply
limited. Over the years, various researchers have spent considerable amounts of time
developing fats that could serve as alternatives to cocoa butter by providing properties
similar to its melting profile and solids content at various temperatures. Several
classes of alternatives have been developed, ranging from cocoa butter ‘‘equivalents’’
produced from selected blends or fractions of natural fats high in specific triglyceride
contents that are miscible in all proportions to cocoa butter, to fats that contain totally
different triglyceride distributions but mimic, in many ways, the melting behavior of
cocoa butter. An example of the production of a cocoa butter ‘‘equivalent’’ would
involve the purification and fractionation of a series of different naturally occurring
fats to obtain the proper proportion of the desired triglycerides having the desired
structure, at the appropriate levels. Commonly used sources of these specialty fats
and their triglyceride distributions are given in Table 5. The majority of the POP
portion required is obtained from palm midfraction.
The reconstruction of a cocoa butter equivalent from the isolation of specific
triglycerides, through fractionation from a variety of source oils and subsequent
blending, obviously is not an inexpensive process, especially since the oils used for
feedstocks are sourced from tropical plants that are not grown and cultivated in the
most efficient manner and in themselves are often supply-constrained. These ‘‘equivalents’’
are commercially viable only when the price of cocoa butter is high enough
to justify their high costs. When cocoa butter is relatively inexpensive, they are not
used.
Table 5 Triglyceride Composition of Sal, Kokum,
Shea, and Illipe Fats
Triglyceride
Composition (wt %)
Sal Kokum Shea Illipe
POO 3 — 2 —
POSt 11 5 5 35
StOSt 42 72 40 45
StOO 16 15 27 3
StOL 1 — 6 —
StOA 13 — 2 4
OOO 3 2 5 —
POP 1 0 0 7
Others 10 6 13 6
A, arachidate; O, oleate; P, palmitate; St, stearate.
Copyright 2002 by Marcel Dekker, Inc. All Rights Reserved.