Have you noticed that Starbucks named their latest Frappuccino line up "Chocolaty Chip" rather than a chocolate chip? The giant coffee company has recently introduced one of their newest ice blended offering called "Double Chocolaty Chip Crème" Frappuccino.
Now that you noticed, are you wondering why?
No, it is not an advertisement technique or a simple name word play. The US Food and Drug Administration actually said so.
What's even the difference? Does the name really have something to do with its content?
Apparently, yes. Chocolaty Chips is not the same with Chocolate Chips.
As defined by the FDA, for it to be considered real 'sweet chocolate', it has to have a certain chocolate liquor content in it. Chocolate liquor is not alcoholic-it is the end product you get when you ground up cacao nibs. And unfortunately, the ones used by Starbucks doesn't make the cut.
The Starbucks chocolaty chips were not meant to be chewed and enjoyed with every bite. They are made for melting down to hot chocolate and grinding up in frozen drinks.
"This is the best recipe for ease of melting in our Molten Chocolate handcrafted beverages and blending into Frappuccino Blended Beverages," a Starbucks representative told The Consumerist.
Looks like the FDA takes the chocolate dictionary seriously. According to their Code of Regulations, Sweet Chocolate is defined;
"Sweet chocolate contains not less than 15 percent by weight of chocolate liquor complying with the requirements of 163.111, as calculated by subtracting from the weight of the chocolate liquor used the weight of the cacao fat therein and the weights therein of any alkali, neutralizing, and seasoning ingredients, and multiplying the remainder by 2.2, dividing the result by the weight of the finished sweet chocolate, and multiplying the quotient by 100.
The finished sweet chocolate contains less than 12 percent by weight of total milk solids based on those dairy ingredients specified in paragraph (b)(4) of this section, exclusive of any added sweetener or other dairy-derived ingredient that is added beyond that amount that is normally present in the specified dairy ingredient."
This doesn't mean that the Starbucks chocolaty chips aren't real chocolates or taste different, they just don't have enough chocolate content in to gain the last letter 'e' in chocolate.
