Ruby chocolate: A study of its phytochemical composition and quantitative comparison with dark, milk and white chocolate.

Ruby chocolate was introduced in 2017 as the fourth type of chocolate, in addition to white, milk and dark chocolate. However, until now not much is reported about its phytochemical composition. Therefore, we analyzed ruby chocolate by UPLC-HRMS, together with the three other types of chocolate. Feature-based molecular networking was carried out to aid in the identification, while a set of 51 reference compounds were analyzed simultaneously for targeted quantification. In this way, a total of 54 compounds could be (tentatively) identified in the chocolates, of which 43 were found in the ruby chocolate. Moreover, 19 compounds were quantified, of which 13 in the ruby chocolate. The compounds include flavan-3-ols, proanthocyanidins and methylxanthines, but also biogenic amines and alkaloids. In general, ruby chocolate contained lower levels of these constituents compared to dark chocolate. However, A-type proanthocyanidins were found to be characteristic for the ruby chocolate.