Three checks tell you. Read the fat position on the ingredients list, track the cocoa percentage over time, and ask the supplier for a certificate of analysis. Real single-origin cocoa butter is named as the only fat and arrives with batch-level lab documentation; a substituted or blended product usually can’t provide a COA.
1. Read the fat position on the ingredients list
On a real product, cocoa butter is named, and it’s the only fat, or the only fat beyond what’s inherent to the cocoa. On a reformulated one, you’ll see “vegetable fats”, palm, shea oil or palm kernel oil sitting alongside or instead of cocoa butter. Ingredients are listed by weight, so a fat appearing high up is doing real structural work.
2. Track the cocoa percentage over time
If a product you’ve bought for years has crept down from, say, 70% to 64% cocoa while the price held, something got cheaper inside the wrapper. That’s often a substitution or dilution story, even when the ingredients line stays vague.
3. Ask for the paperwork (the COA)
The most decisive check. A supplier selling genuine single-origin cocoa butter can hand you a certificate of analysis, a batch-level document stating free fatty acid value, melt behaviour, moisture and microbiological limits for the exact material. A blended, substituted or broker-chain product usually can’t. If you can’t get a COA, you’re not buying a known quantity, you’re buying a wrapper.
The short version
If it’s real cocoa butter, it’s named on the label, it’s the only fat, and it comes with a COA. Want the full picture? Read our guide on how to read a 2026 chocolate label. To test your current supply against a documented one, email team@cocoafoundry.co.uk for a sample of our single-origin Ghana cocoa butter and its COA.