Talk:White chocolate/GA1

GA Review

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Nominator: Rollinginhisgrave (talk · contribs) 09:59, 28 September 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Reviewer: Szmenderowiecki (talk · contribs) 01:55, 15 October 2024 (UTC)[reply]

This is a placeholder comment indicating that I will review this article shortly. Bear with me.

Szmenderowiecki I can see you haven't been active for a bit, but for when you are, I believe I've addressed these points, if not satisfactorily, with great effort. Rollinginhisgrave (talk) 11:02, 7 November 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Rollinginhisgrave Yeah, been a bit busy IRL. I will read your comments shortly. Szmenderowiecki (talk) 16:06, 9 November 2024 (UTC)[reply]

GA review – see WP:WIAGA for criteria

Is it well written?
A. The prose is clear and concise, and the spelling and grammar are correct:
Historically in the United Kingdom, white chocolate has been closely associated with children. -> The sentence kinda appears out of the blue and is out of context as well. Because you later go on to say that the US only started getting white chocolate in 1984, it would be good to state at least the major nations where the Milkybar/Nestle Galak extended, and then go on with the statement that in the UK, Milkybars, which I assume was the only white chocolate out there, was commonly seen as a children's item.

I'll make an effort to find additional information on this

Working on this, leaving this for myself.

Done

In the United States during the 21st century, chocolate makers made more higher-quality white chocolate, in part in response to a rise in the cost of cocoa butter. Which is to say that Americans were making trash all along until prices rose? I mean, from the European perspective this is certainly appealing and that kinda sounds right because the article already describes adulteration with palm oil but I guess that's not the implication you wanted to make.

Done Reworded to more white chocolate for a premium market

Cocoa butter can contribute a yellow color to white chocolate, which can be considered undesirable OK, but I guess what you should be doing is describing what white chocolate should be (taste, colour, smell, texture etc.) and then saying what deviations from the norm are undesirable and how they appear. You should do it particularly because you mention the standard properties of white chocolate.

~~clock pending source access~~

Done I think? Rewrote so attributes are put before undesirable variations.

That looks better, thank you.

Undesirable flavors in white chocolate include metal and paper or cardboard -> what deviation from standard manufacturing process makes it taste that way?

~~clock pending source access~~

Done for paper and cardboard

Good.

1% water (table) -> not sure what (table) is supposed to mean here, it confuses me.

This is the source for the information (the table of nutrients), following convention in food FAs (see Cucurbita#Nutrition and Lettuce#Nutrition)

I changed it to (see table) as this is much clearer. I read it as table water - like WTF is that supposed to mean?

540 calories -> better write kilocalories to avoid all confusion.

Done

After the ingredients are mixed, the mass enters a refining a machine. -> I think you don't need second "a"

Done

conching at higher temperatures can "brown" the chocolate -> conching at higher temperatures can make the mass brown, which is undesirable. Also, it would be nice to specify why the mass darkens (too low a temperature for caramelization; does it have to do with Maillard reaction?) and why it is undesirable. Does it change taste? Or it's just consumers who think white chocolate should be (off-)white?

~~clock pending source access~~

Done

After conching, the viscosity and taste of the mixture is standardized by adding flavorings, emulsifiers or cocoa butter. This is necessary, given the use of automatic molding and enrobing equipment. -> so to be clear, what the sources are saying is that chocolate producers can't get it right the first time and they have to correct it, or is it the case that this procedure is just necessary to course-correct if necessary?

pending source access

I'm not sure what the difference between these are. There are just a lot of factors at play; cocoa beans come from a plant for one. I'm not sure I'll be able to find a source that says that's the cause for standardization beyond noting throughout the steps the different factors at play such as humidity, time, and precision in grinding etc and letting the reader perform SYNTH. Rollinginhisgrave (talk) 12:10, 21 October 2024 (UTC)[reply]

OK, I mean the manufacturing section is actually pretty good already, so I can let this go, but maybe you knew something about it.

As a result, they require a comparatively high cooling time. -> How long and at what temperature?

pending source access

It depends on a lot of factors such as CBE content and the machine used, I can't really generalize here.\

Then write that it depends on CBE content and equipment and just link a source for more details, if you can find it of course.

In January 2022, the European Food Safety Authority banning the food coloring agent, E171 (titanium dioxide) -> banned

Done

nutritive carbohydrate sweetener -> you can explain it's in most cases just plain sugar (sucrose).

~~clock pending source access~~

Done

B. It complies with the manual of style guidelines for lead sections, layout, words to watch, fiction, and list incorporation:
I'd totally rewrite the lead because IMHO it's a bit of a mess. Below I propose a rewrite, see if you agree with it. I will also indicate passages where I have some additional comments.

The lead

White chocolate is a form of chocolate made of cocoa butter, sugar and milk. Unlike milk and dark chocolate, it does not contain cocoa solids, which darken the chocolate mass. White chocolate has an ivory color, and can smell of biscuit, vanilla or caramel, although it can also easily pick up smells from the environment, and become rancid with its relatively short shelf life.

Of the three main types of chocolate, white chocolate is the newest. It was first commercially sold by Swiss company Nestlé in 1936 and manufactured and nationally distributed in the United States in 1984 (that seems dubious. That late in a market that large? See also below). Even though it was branded as chocolate, some consumers found calling the confectionary product "chocolate" controversial; acceptance of the name only came with the 21st century. In the 21st century, manufacturers in the United Kingdom began marketing white chocolate to adults and worldwide began producing higher-quality white chocolate. (That's a I-really-don’t-know-what-he-said-and-I-don’t-think-he-does-either sentence. You seem to have had two simultaneous thoughts which condensed into something incomprehensible. Also, I don't think "marketing to adults" makes sense without the context that initially, white chocolate in Britain was seen as a child's treat.) c. 2005, a variant called blond chocolate was invented, produced by slowly cooking white chocolate across multiple days.

White chocolate made by a process of mixing, refining, conching, standardizing and tempering (you need to be less technical here and explain some terms. Mixing what? Refining what? Explain conching in 3-4 words. What is being standardized?). Like milk and dark chocolate, white chocolate is used to make chocolate bars and as a coating in confectionery. In 2022, white chocolate made up 10% of the chocolate market. As of 2024, the market for white chocolate was projected to grow by around 5% for the next few years, driven by an increase in consumption of premium white chocolate, particularly in Europe.

I've tried to break this stuff down, implemented your reworded lede (thankyou, I really didn't enjoy writing it)

Still not a fan of with the 21st century. In the 21st century, manufacturers in the United Kingdom began marketing white chocolate to adults for the first time and manufacturers worldwide began producing higher-quality white chocolate. for reasons I believe I mentioned elsewhere, but it's already going in the right direction.

greater acceptance of the classification only came with the 21st century. That century, manufacturers began producing more premium white chocolate, and in the United Kingdom the traditionally children's product was marketed to adults for the first time. Hope this is better

I'd slightly shuffle the order by which the article goes. So first how the chocolate is manufactured, then the desired characteristics and deviations arising from the manufacturing and storage process, and as a subsection of characteristics, nutritional facts. Does that work for you?

Done had to remove the picture of Belgian chocolates as it was spilling over but the order makes sense

I changed the order even more, so that we start with history and then go on to manufacturing. That makes a bit more sense to me, feel free to revert if you disagree

Looks good.

Is it verifiable with no original research, as shown by a source spot-check?
A. It contains a list of all references (sources of information), presented in accordance with the layout style guideline:

B. Reliable sources are cited inline. All content that could reasonably be challenged, except for plot summaries and that which summarizes cited content elsewhere in the article, must be cited no later than the end of the paragraph (or line if the content is not in prose):
White chocolate was not made and mass distributed in the United States until 1984, when Nestlé released Alpine White, a white chocolate bar which contained almonds Dubious, Ross F. Collins, Chocolate: A Cultural Encyclopedia, p. 373, says the bar was introduced in 1948 not 1984; and this is a big difference that I believe should not be reconciled by WP:DUE, because we are not speaking of opinions but of asserting facts that make a lot of difference. While a ProQuest query suggests the chocolate bar was indeed introduced in 1984, I see sources quoting the date that is 36 years before. You have to investigate that. If that is indeed 1984, I think Wikipedia would owe an explanation on why Americans never had "white chocolate". - IMPORTANT

Collins is wrong. He's wrong about a lot, I try to avoid using him, but the work received good reviews so I can use it if you would like. Someone, somewhere has mixed up the numbers 84 and 48. And the fact that Collins has repeated it uncritically speaks poorly to his scholarship. I can leave a footnote of this, but I'll be honest, when we have a source saying "this was released four years ago" in 1988, not to mention the primary sources in 1984 saying "Nestle is releasing this chocolate bar", why would we? The whole history is repeating this blog, which as you note below, for Wikipedia's purposes, doesn't fall into WP:EXPERTSPS.

some things here still need to be addressed

I missed the sources confirming the 1984 date, could you please link them to me? If they confirm the 1984 date, then screw Collins. Contemporary sources about product launches occurring during their time could not be wrong about this stuff, and 36 years is too wide a gap to tolerate.

I didn't put the 1984 source about the launch in the article as I felt that hewed too close to OR; you can see the inline source for the statement is from 1990 (six years later). In the preview for it, you can see White chocolate was not manufactured and distributed in the United States until 1984. That year, Nestle introduced its Nestle Superior Quality Alpine White with Almonds bar. Alpine White is now second in company sales.

I'm OK with the explanation

These predictions were challenged by the unstable cocoa prices that had occurred since the mid 2010s. -> surely you mean 2020s? I look at the price chart and I don't see that much variation in prices until 2023, when they totally shot in the sky. Are there any updates for the unstable market cocoa is in today?

Yes, crazy price instability recently (see the draft on my userpage for 2024 cocoa crisis that I am beginning to write), but it has been unstable for a few years now. I can integrate some discussion of market instability, but no one is writing about how it affects white chocolate specifically.

I don't see the mid-2010s on the webpage. Maybe you have the report at hand and it actually says that, but if it doesn't, it's a bit of an original research issue, because you are attributing something to them that they did not say and what likely comes from I understand is your expertise in the food industry, amirite? If so, drop it.

Changed to align with linked source.

Done

C. It contains no original research:

D. It contains no copyright violations nor plagiarism:
Is it broad in its coverage?
A. It addresses the main aspects of the topic:
While the history of white chocolate is unclear, there is a consensus that the first commercial white chocolate tablet, Nestlé Galak (known as Milkybar in the United Kingdom), was launched by the Swiss company Nestlé in 1936. -> Because the history of chocolate article doesn't mention how white chocolate was invented, I believe it's a big omission not to describe how the history is unclear. You don't have to mention every possible theory but the main theories would help understand first efforts at producing white chocolate. See Ross F. Collins, Chocolate: A Cultural Encyclopedia, p. 373-374 as a potential source.

See discussion above about Collins above, I'd like to hear your thoughts before I move forward with integrating.

Maybe if you could corroborate that info somewhere else, I think we could describe the uncertainty. I thought the source was good, but if you show that he's wrong, as requested above, I definitely will not press to include it.

You may also probably mention that pre-1930s "white chocolate" was not the white chocolate as we know it but some other cocoa bean product, see Louis E. Grivetti, Howard-Yana Shapiro, Chocolate - History, Culture, Heritage 2009, p. 432, 434 and this: quite iffy a source but you can cite the original if you want. This is definitely not what we know as white chocolate, so not obligatory, but up for consideration.

I did integrate the Grivetti and Shapiro info in an earlier draft which you can see here in the first paragraph of the history section. Ultimately I decided it was too off-topic, given the only thing it shared was the name white chocolate. If you think it's worth keeping, I can add it back in.

I think that there could be one or two sentences about the "white chocolate". You don't have to describe it in detail, just say it referred to either a specific type of cocoa beans (1783) or pharmacy preparations that are different from white chocolate as we know it. That blog source could actually be used in this particular case, because even though it's an anonymous guy, he clearly dug up some weird apothecary formulations that you can see for yourself and which are definitely not the white chocolate in your supermarket aisle. But as I said, don't describe it in detail, just say that historically it meant different things, and if people want to read up on that, they will follow the sources.

Integrated Grivetti and Shapiro. I've spent a lot of time considering integrating the blog and have decided against it. I can expand on my thinking if you would like. Rollinginhisgrave (talk) 12:10, 21 October 2024 (UTC)[reply]

I reformulated the sentence a bit, but it looks a bit better now IMHO.

There's a big gap between 1936 and 1984 in the history section, which is concerning. Nothing really happened? This strains belief. For example, the 2001 Wall Street Journal article says that Good white chocolate became more widely available here about 50 years ago, after the founder of Hebert Candies, Frederick Everett Hebert, tasted some of the real stuff on a trip to Europe and formulated and patented a recipe for it back home.

But even Hebert, which claims to be the originator of white chocolate in the U.S. and sells products like white-chocolate peanut-butter logs all year long, says it contributes just 8% of its sales. -> which implies something was going on in the 1950s but the WP article doesn't say anything about that. Also, I understand that technically Zero bar says it's "white fudge" coating and not white chocolate, but it might be germane to mention it in the history of white-chocolate-adjacent products; also particularly because white chocolate could not be marketed as chocolate in the US. Also, good to have non-Anglo-centric perspectives on the topic. - IMPORTANT

I have had a lot of difficulty finding high-quality sourcing discussing the Zero Bar in the context of white chocolate, I'll have another go. I decided against the Hebert Candies stuff given it appears to be driven by marketing claims by them and they seem to be the main ones making this claim, but I can put it in / try to find better information. I'll keep looking at non-Anglo history, I remember only finding incidental stuff such as white chocolate sales in China being affected by the 2008 Chinese milk scandal.

Even if there is no non-Anglo history, the main issue is half a century of no info whatsoever about the fate of the product. In the eyes of an average lurker it would kinda suggest that it was just Nestle and that's it until 1984, and even then Alpine White was also Nestle's.

I have expanded this history. I will keep trying to find more, but I hope it is sufficient for the GAN criteria of broadness for now.

Done

Yeah, there is some more information here, and that is definitely sufficient for me.

Done

In some chocolate, some cocoa butter is substituted for cocoa butter equivalents (CBEs) and cocoa butter substitutes (CBSs). -> while you explain these terms, which is great, you should also provide practical examples of what is added instead of cocoa butter (palm oil, Shea butter etc.)

Done

Accepted.

Consider this source for incorporation.

Considered, decided against. There's loads of stuff being published on functional foods as it's a broader trend in confectionery atm (along with plenty of other trends), this particular article doesn't add much. Rollinginhisgrave (talk) 05:51, 31 October 2024 (UTC)[reply]

OK, fair enough.

In regulations, you should present how white chocolate was treated on a regulatory level before the standards were set. In the US, before FDA set standards for white chocolate, white chocolate could not be legally marketed as "chocolate" because it contained no cocoa solids. Not sure about the EU. You should also mention what other ingredients are allowed in chocolate, which is, whether cocoa butter may be substituted, what additives are permitted for marketing as chocolate - lecithins and polyglycerol polyricinoleate spring to my mind. For good measure I'd try to find what folks in India and China say, because after all that's 1/3 of the global population. but I digress.

Done

In the market section, I would expect some information about which countries produce the most white chocolate and consume the most. Maybe there is also some regional variation about perceptions of white chocolate? i mean, I came across offers to pay $4000 for a report on white chocolate - no thank you - but surely there is some way to get to know that info?

Not done Had a good look for this. No luck, there are some chocolate company's interviews that I could attribute, but nothing I would want to put in wikivoice, and their opinion without attestation would be undue

It's OK then. I trust you tried hard. Maybe there's a copy in the library or something, but you've already done a good job.

In variations, you should probably describe some additives they add to white chocolate, because you already have some images with white chocolate with some rose petals I think? There are some additives that work for white chocolate but not really for milk or dark chocolate (pineapple or yes, rose petals and berries come to mind). This is particularly important for artisanal chocolate.

I think I've already done this? I gave nine examples (starting with butterscotch, caramel, coffee...) which I hope is sufficient. Rollinginhisgrave (talk) 05:51, 31 October 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Maybe I was fast asleep. It's indeed there.

Finally, I would list some white chocolate treats with the largest market share so far.

Not done Much to my disappointment, I didn't have any luck on this front.

Well, bummer. It's OK for me though, as at least the most known brands are mentioned.

B. It stays focused on the topic without going into unnecessary detail (see summary style):
Is it neutral?
It represents viewpoints fairly and without editorial bias, giving due weight to each:
The history section is too Anglo-centric, particularly considering that somehow it's Belgium that mentioned as a major white chocolate producer, and the product is initially Swiss.

Done

Reads better.

Is it stable?
It does not change significantly from day to day because of an ongoing edit war or content dispute:
Is it illustrated, if possible, by images?
A. Images are tagged with their copyright status, and valid non-free use rationales are provided for non-free content:
It's all kosher on this front

B. Images are relevant to the topic, and have suitable captions:
You need to add alternative captions to the images, but the amount of images is definitely within the acceptable range

Noting that this is not part of GACR, but will add shortly.

Done

Overall: The article isn't in a bad state. I like the manufacturing section, this is a very good one. However, there are some things I need fixed before moving on. Consider changing the layout somewhat. There are some fragments that need to be rewritten, like the lead, but it contains most of the stuff that is relevant so I have little issues with that. The article is also generally on-topic and covers most points to an acceptable degree, though I believe there should be improvements before it's GA-worthy. I outlined directions for small improvements in the article.
There is an issue though that absolutely needs fixing. It is the gaping hole in the history section between 1936 and 1984, together with uncertainty over when white chocolate was first introduced in North America and in which form; and the general Anglo-centricity of the section. This is about assertions of fact, and I will be an asshole about it. We need to get this right. If you need time for research, fine, so be it. I can wait. But we really don't want to perpetuate false history, particularly not when we are considering to show this off as an example of decent content. Also, when you mention products like Alpine White, it's good to note that it was retired in mid-1990s and find reasons why (cost, poor reception, changing tastes...).
Once these problems are fixed, I think I will see a decent reference article that I will happily promote to GA status.

Rollinginhisgrave, most of my concerns have been adequately addressed. It would be good to clarify that particular thing about the comparatively high cooling time, but I also think that you've done a great job here, and that's an article I can definitely recommend to a casual reader. It's not complete, but it's broad enough, and has a lot of interesting bits in there. The manufacturing section is almost FA-class stuff. I don't believe it would be fair to withhold the GA label anymore, so congrats! Szmenderowiecki (talk) 11:40, 18 November 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Pass or Fail: