Chocolate Specification Data Understanding
Santa Barbara Chocolate cares about your safety and ours. All of us here in the office eat lots of chocolate everyday. We want to eat safe chocolate as much as you do and we sell chocolate that we are confident in eating ourselves.
The specification sheets are provided for our chocolates with the goal of helping educate you, our customer, and also to be as transparent as possible. The specification sheets are complex and have a lot of data. Some of the data can be confusing, so please read what is written below to help in understanding the information. Please note that our chocolate specifications and chocolate may change without notice or update.
Additionally you can learn a lot from searching the FDA which is focused on ensuring your safety. We encourage you to be food aware. It is important to know your source and we want to be your chocolate source.
Santa Barbara Chocolate most often uses the FDA BAM testing methods which is the FDA micro testing preferred method for our organic chocolate and chocolate products. Depending on the chocolate and where it is made, we may use the testing and data we receive from the supplier or agent.
Under BAM testing, the results are reported as MPN/g (Most Probable Number/g). Results aren't typically reported as “0” or “absent”.
A result reported as "
For references, FDA BAM testing and reporting methods are available online from the FDA website: https://www.fda.gov/food/laboratory-methods-food/bacteriological-analytical-manual-bam
Additionally some tests vary in the data analysis based on how the research or test is done. For example, staph. aureus parameters at 1:10 dilution. In micro testing, just saying “Negative” doesn’t really mean anything unless you discuss the sensitivity of the testing procedure.