The European Commission Regulation proposed new threshold limits for Cd in cacao-derived products, which will be enforced on January 1, 2019. Because Cd in chocolate originates from the cacao beans, the industry has set a concentration requirement of 0.60 mg Cd kg^-1 dry weight for cacao beans. It is anticipated that this new requirement will have a large impact on the cacao market in South and Central America where cacao bean Cd concentrations are relatively high in comparison to cacao from other geographical origins (e.g. Africa). Indeed, recent survey studies indicated that 45 % of the sampled cacao beans in Ecuador contained concentrations of Cd higher than 0.60 mg kg^-1. The aim of this study was to identify the Cd distribution within cacao bean tissues and the potential redistribution of Cd during fermentation. This knowledge may shed light on possible modifications in the extensive post-harvest process of cacao to control the Cd concentration in the final product. Currently only limited and often contradictory information is available regarding the localization of Cd within the different cacao bean tissues and the influences of post-harvest practices such as fermentation on Cd in cacao have not been studied to date. The distribution of Cd between and within the different tissues of the cacao bean (the nib or cotyledons, the seed coat or testa and the radicle), as well as the influence of fermentation on this distribution, were studied in the two main varieties grown in Ecuador: CCN-51 and Nacional. Cacao bean samples before and after fermentation were collected from a full scale fermentation cascade (200 kg) and a lab scale fermentation set-up (5 kg). Cacao beans for lab scale fermentation were sourced from a limited number of neighbouring trees to minimize the variation in elemental composition of the non-processed cacao beans. The elemental concentrations in the different tissues of unfermented and fermented cacao beans were analysed through acid digestion followed by inductively coupled plasma mass spectrometry (ICP-MS) analysis, and the distribution of elements within the cacao bean was visualized using laser ablation ICP-MS (LA-ICP-MS). Strong differences were observed between the elemental compositions of the different tissues. In unfermented cacao beans, cadmium concentrations were up to 70 % higher in the testa (Nacional 0.66 mg Cd kg^-1 and CCN51 3.1 mg Cd kg^-1) compared to the nib (Nacional 0.39 mg Cd kg^-1 and CCN-51 1.8 mg Cd kg^-1). During fermentation, the concentrations of most elements increased significantly in the testa of the cacao beans. For example, during full-scale fermentation of CCN-51 cacao, the Cd concentration in the testa increased from 0.60 mg kg^-1 to 1.3 mg kg^-1 while the Cd concentration of the nibs significantly (p<0.05) decreased from 0.49 mg kg^-1 to 0.38 mg kg^-1. Imaging of cacao bean cross sections by LA-ICP-MS revealed that the elements were heterogeneously distributed within the nib and testa. Particularly, a centre zone within the nib exhibited elevated concentrations of Cd and Cu but this zone was not visible for Ca, K, Ni, P or Zn. At the conference, both the ICP-MS data from the full scale fermentation and the LA-ICP-MS images from the lab scale fermentation will be further shown.