Also, Nutella adapts its recipe for different EU countries. The poorer countries get more sugar %. This was warned about in EU Parliament some time ago but I don't know if it's actually been put under control.
i mean it tastes like shit so, y'know, i eat other stuff. they don't deserve the money on multiple levels i'm with you. i've spent many years trying to figure this out. it's so... mealy here.
But it also means its a food quality type of thing to avoid, which realistically is probably a better way to get to most people than the environment that they don't seem to care about if it saves them even a single penny. Tell them it tastes worse.
Funnily enough palm oil is, in isolation, one of the more environmentally friendly oils (based on land and water use). This is probably in direct relation with it being cheap. Switching to other oils is still better because the deforestation of rain forest being so much worse overall, but the real solution as is so often the case has to be lower plant oil use in general.
If you want an oil that does not impact the taste, and that has specific melting properties at certain temperatures, then palm oil can be the correct choice. This is a quality of palm oil that few other oils have. It is neither inherently good nor bad, it is just a property you can select. If you actually want a certain taste by the oil itself, then don't select palm oil.
Secondly, being cheap is nothing bad. It is, by itself, unrelated to quality. In fact, all else being equal, cheap ingredients should be preferred. We need to get away from the opinion that only expensive food is good. Price and quality are somewhat correlated, but this is not an absolute, and it most certainly is not a requirement.
Instead of corporate, mass produced chocolates, please consider locally made, small batch chocolates if you truly want to support your chocolate industry. Also, its so much better.
Ah, it was full health & safety... large stainless steel vat containing hot molten chocolate, rotating stirring paddle, steps (unsecured) up to an open inspection hatch... but they wore hair nets...
And, I think they had that policy where all the staff could take as much chocolate as they wanted... so of course, all got sick & tired of that and never took any more.
Did you sign an NDA and this is the only version of the story you are legally allowed to repeat?
(I'm glad for stories like that - I lived visiting factories/companies and farms throughout all school days. Kids need to understand what the production factors are & how logistics connects us all.)
I wouldn't call it shit, but it's very overpriced. It's like luxury brands like Gucci and what have you, you're paying for the brand and the quality isn't necessarily better. I'm no connoisseur or anything, but I've had some really good high quality chocolate a few times, and the depth in flavour you get is just something Lindt doesn't have.
With cacao harvests suffering due to global warming, and the working conditions generally being shit (slave labour, even) my approach is to treat chocolate like the luxury it is; splurge on it on occasion, get something from a reputable seller, if there's an artisanal chocolatier locally you can support local business and have a better idea of where the ingredients are from.
It’s the most ubiquitous chocolate we have in every store that isn’t Hersheys or Nestles trash. If you have a better suggestion that isn’t more pricy, then let us know.
Like I said, I treat it as a luxury. I buy from a local artisan, it gets expensive so I don't eat a whole lot. Flavour is fantastic and I know it's not from slavery, so that's all that matters to me.
I don't judge anyone for choosing Lindt. I just personally can't.
I like the the dark chocolate in the blue wrapper. No bitter anftertaste and the cool truffle center is lovely. But hey, you have another suggestion on a cheap-ish chocolate that’s worth the calories, that is welcome.
They actually add that flavor to it because that's what their chocolate is known to taste like. And it's known to taste like that from going bad in WW2 rations.
So when I say that they add vomit flavor, that's not a joke. They literally add vomit flavor. It's so bad.
Edit: Butyric acid, I think or something like that
Completely unasked-for protip if you ever find yourself in Zurich - do the Lindt Home of Chocolate tour (building is fucking gorgeous and the tour is pretty cool), but don't be a sucker and visit the shop in the lobby. There's a factory outlet at the back of the property.
I know as a random American, chances are you won't need this information, but I feel I got played when I walked out with my fancy bag of redic-balls expensive chocolate a few months ago (part of that was the CAD > CHF exchange rate, but still)
I don't even know for sure if the chocolate is less expensive at the back, but noting the number of Swiss coming out of the outlet v. The Home of Chocolate, and difference in bag quality, it probably is.
Also you might see these cars on the way back there, which are adorable af.
I like their reasoning behind the differently sized chunks ngl. According to text they have printed on the inside of the paper wrapping it's because in the chocolate industry (and many other places) wealth is also distributed unevenly: a few go grab all the too big chunks (big corpo grabbing everything for themselves) and the last ones (aka the ones who actually harvest the cocoa in this case) will be left with the tiny scraps only.
Now whether that absolutely needs to be put into the size of the pieces is debatable, I tend to have bars for myself so worst case I grab a knife and chop the big ones up. Or just bite them in half.
I can't recommend Tony's Chocolonely enough since they are the only chocolate maker [ I know of ] that actively tries to act against exploitation of cocoa farmers by paying a higher price per kilo. There is a John Oliver Episode on them :)
They are great, here in my hometown (Nottingham, UK) we have a little place called Louisa's, and as far as I'm aware, she's the only vegan chocolate maker in the UK. She does direct trade with small family farms so that everyone gets paid fairly (direct trade > fair trade), she also knows a lot about the cocoa plant and so will visit her farmers to help them grow better beans and ensure these farms are run in an ethical fashion.
Her chocolate is absolutely divine too, if you can, order from her.
Warning, it's pricey, but hopefully you'll understand why!
Who the fuck is buying Hersheys outside of the States anyway? Some sick fucks who enjoy the taste you get when you burp and throw up a little?
Nah, anyone in Europe who's eaten chocolate that's made from actual milk would automatically reject that shit out of hand. In fact, I'd sooner eat the abomination that Cadburys has become since they got bought out by the Yanks.
Butyric acid in case anyone is wondering. Literally a product of digestion, so you taste it when you throw up:
Highly-fermentable fiber residues, such as those from resistant starch, oat bran, pectin, and guar are transformed by colonic bacteria into short-chain fatty acids (SCFA) including butyrate, producing more SCFA than less fermentable fibers such as celluloses.[13][21] One study found that resistant starch consistently produces more butyrate than other types of dietary fiber.[22] The production of SCFA from fibers in ruminant animals such as cattle is responsible for the butyrate content of milk and butter.[23]
They literally put vomit flavor in their chocolate!!!
Are there any chocolate companies with well-documented supply chains that don't use child labor, slave labor, or otherwise exploit cocoa producers? Because everything I've seen and heard tells me that its best to just not eat chocolate at all.
does haribo just make gummy bears or is that only what they sell to americans? we tend to get the crappy versions, don't even get toys in our kinder eggs anymore because they could be a choking hazard.
They make lots of different stuff, but its all similiar to gummi bears in one way or another.
They have tiny marshmallows and maoam style sweets as well.
My personal favourite is the Salty Sea they make. And Piratos, too. Not sure if a regional thing though, salmiakki isn’t all that popular in most of the world I guess. Their liqourice is okay, too, like in Color-rado.
I’m personally not a fan of their gummies though, or any ”fruity” sweets in general, so can’t attest to how they compare to those I mentioned.
the Ferrero brand make nutella and kinder bars, and they also financially support the zionist entity and their ongoing genocide of palestinians. If that's the kind of thing you'd rather not support i'd suggest avoiding ferrero (and nestle)
I really like Ritter choccolate, but I find the motto really funny: you can't get more German than describing your chocolate (something you eat) first as square, second as practical, and only third, and last, as good 😆
I haven’t seen a retraction. In 2024 there were articles where the CEO basically doubled down on the decision to remain, making Ritter Sport a hard no for me.
I tried a Toney Chocoloney not too long ago and GOD DAMN that was some good fucking chocolate.
Wasn't a fan of the way it's cut(?). It makes it real damn hard not to just eat the entire bar in one sitting when I can't just break off 2 or 3 squares.
Toney is also ethical chocolate as the aim is to make the chocolate trade more fair for chocolate farmers. That's also why it's a bit expensive and it's why it is divided the way it is. It's a symbolic representation of how unfairly the chocolate industry distributes the wealth. Next time you buy a Toney bar, try and read the text inside the wrapping paper. Their mission is stated there if I remember correctly.
Very interesting!! Always seen these bars around but didn't know that it was both delicious chocolate and trying to be somewhat ethical in the world of chocolate trade. Will have to try it sometime!
But you can break off fun, quirkly-sized chunks!! Didn't I see somewhere it was supposed to be a map of something?
Also, I had no idea until this post that it wasn't made in the US. I love Chocolonely.
Edit, from the Chocolonely site:
Why are your bars unequally divided?
It doesn’t make sense for chocolate bars to be divided into equal-sized chunks when there is so much inequality in the chocolate industry! The unequally-sized chunks of our 180g bars are a palatable way of reminding Choco Fans and Serious Friends that the profits in the chocolate industry are unequally divided.
And in case you haven’t noticed, the bottom of our bars depicts the West African coastline. The chunks just above it represent the Gulf of Guinea. From left to right, you have Côte d’Ivoire, Ghana, Togo and Benin (terribly politically incorrect, we know, but we had to combine them to create enough space for a hazelnut), Nigeria and part of Cameroon.
As a Belgian I have no clue how anyone can eat most of these, and that's including the European ones. Jacques, Callebaut or Galler are the only chocolate I actually buy. Cote Dor dark is decent though.
Or Leonidas, Neuhaus or any small chocolatier for chocolate "bonbons", the fancy filled chocolates.
There are a lot of European brands missing on that website, and judging by the plethora of random small American ones, I assume it's probably because it's made by an American.
It also weirdly puts Tony's in the boycott section, when it's basically the only big brand trying to actively change their whole supply chain (there's still progress to be made, but putting it alongside Nestlé? really?).
Despite numerous announced initiatives by companies profiting from child and slave labor, none have produced meaningful results. The underlying issue is the inability to ensure a true living wage for farmers, leading them to resort to unpaid child labor, while the industry strives to keep cacao prices at rock bottom.
The conclusion is clear: consumer-facing marketing claims unravel to reveal no substantial impact, leaving consumers susceptible to being "brandwashed." Until significant tangible changes are witnessed or an assurance of ethical practices throughout their operations is evident, Tony’s Chocolonely remains excluded from the list.
They at least give a reason for Tony's to be on the boycott list. But then again, this is the last "news" article they published and it's now over two years old, so who can really say.
But doesn't that apply just as much to Fairtrade and other, similar certifications? Tony's is Fairtrade certified. Seems weird to give Fairtrade as a guide for brands not on the list but then exclude one specifically.
Oh, I did not catch that. It's entirely possible that Tony's being on the boycott list is based on outdated information. As far as I know it's just one person maintaining the page. I think you can also contact them.
Calm down. I'm just telling that the terminology "European Chocolate" for the product that is made from 80-90% of non-european resources and done in an extremely trivial way (so it isn't even classical "your primitive resouses can be only useful after applying of our marvelous technology") is... well, funny.
No I don't say that it is an offtop, or incorrect or anything. Just funny. At least for me.
I see what you mean, but your belief that making chocolate from cocoa is „extremely trivial“ is simply wrong. For example, conching was invented in Europe and without it, chocolate would taste and feel totally different. The process is so important and difficult to get right, it often makes the biggest difference in chocolate quality to this day.
That is a mixer. Not really a rocket science. (I can prove my point: chocolate is produced in every country that actually wanted that. "Non-trivial" technologies are less widespread)
if you are in the bay area, check out dandelion in san francisco. they make pretty good chocolate. the stuff you can get in stores is all too chalky for me. theirs is not chalky.
Besides Lindt, which is publicly traded and has a minor share of American investors, almost all the other brands are family owned, which is rare in the modern food industry (Kinder, Nutella, Ritter, Knoppers, Toffifee and Haribo). Tony's is backed by the Belgian investment group Verlinvest.
yesn't. they have really good chocolate, but they refused to boycott russia back in 2022 (or 23?) and had a really low excuse, although most german companies stood in solidarity with ukraine.
They do, but it's not because the cacao percentage is less than xx%, that there's milk in it. For my country (Belgium) dark chocolate typically has no milk in it, but I'm not going to claim that there doesn't exist Belgian dark chocolate with milk in it. There's no law against it afaik and there's so many different recipes, that it's bound to exist.
It's actually the reverse. A bit of history:
Belgium used to have laws concerning the composition of both chocolate and mayonnaise. Afaik, they've both been abolished for about 2 decades now because it was deemed protectionism by the EU.
The chocolate law was replaced by a regional protection for "Belgian chocolate". By law, chocolate can only be marketed as Belgian chocolate if it adheres to the rules of the old law and is produced in Belgium. Which has been a huge marketing win for Belgian chocolate producers.
If I remember correct, the loss of the mayonnaise law lead to a massive sales boost for Devos Lemmens because buying that brand was the easiest way to make sure that you were buying real mayonnaise. Nowadays, most mayonnaise for sale in Belgium is clearly marked with things like "made according to traditional Belgian recipe", but there's no law anymore that is stopping Germans from trying to sell their mayonnaise as mayonnaise in Belgium. Aldi did try selling German mayonnaise for a while, but Belgians weren't buying it, so they've given up and they're now selling both Devos Lemmens and a store brand that is made according to the traditional recipe.
Edit to add: So there is a law for Belgian chocolate, but afaik there's no anti milk provision for dark chocolate in that law.
Please support Tony’s Chocolonely- they actively work to make sure that their Cocoa suppliers get a living wage, far more than what virtually any other Cocoa buyers pay.
Recently i tried to withdraw any sugar but I couldn't persist in this sacrifice, and now I am again a sugar slut. My latest discovery - caramel popcorn from Stork (the Toffifee company, while Toffifee are also delicious).
air pop your popcorn, use equal parts butter (just your regular amount) and brown sugar, add a little cinnamon and your regular amount of salt, and you've got churro corn. i dropped sugar entirely except that so i could binge on it.
With the current price of cocoa impacting supermarket chocolate, I encourage everybody to check out prices at specialized shops. I’m buying excellent chocolates (“bonbons”) at the same price of store brand regular chocolate bars.
Cote d'or, Hershey's, Reese's and Oreos are objectively disgusting anyway. Peanut M&Ms are barely tolerable. Mars is ok if you go to the trouble of cutting it up and putting it in the fridge. Snickers has the wrong name. The only thing I'd say tastes good in that block is the Toblerone and I'm fine giving it up for ethical reasons.
Please avoid Nutella, Kinder and Ferrero products in general. They are known to source their cacao and nuts from child labour.
Also Nutella is like 2/3 palm oil, which destroys rainforests.
Also, Nutella adapts its recipe for different EU countries. The poorer countries get more sugar %. This was warned about in EU Parliament some time ago but I don't know if it's actually been put under control.
is that why the nutella i buy in statesia tastes like shit? should i ask someone to import some from belgium for me?
Quite possibly yes, and absolutely no, they don't deserve the money.
i mean it tastes like shit so, y'know, i eat other stuff. they don't deserve the money on multiple levels i'm with you. i've spent many years trying to figure this out. it's so... mealy here.
Isn't palm oil also cheap and tasteless in comparison to cocoa butter? So not only is it bad for the environment but it also just kinda sucks
Yes, which is part of why it's in so many things.
But it also means its a food quality type of thing to avoid, which realistically is probably a better way to get to most people than the environment that they don't seem to care about if it saves them even a single penny. Tell them it tastes worse.
Funnily enough palm oil is, in isolation, one of the more environmentally friendly oils (based on land and water use). This is probably in direct relation with it being cheap. Switching to other oils is still better because the deforestation of rain forest being so much worse overall, but the real solution as is so often the case has to be lower plant oil use in general.
I want to offer counter points.
If you want an oil that does not impact the taste, and that has specific melting properties at certain temperatures, then palm oil can be the correct choice. This is a quality of palm oil that few other oils have. It is neither inherently good nor bad, it is just a property you can select. If you actually want a certain taste by the oil itself, then don't select palm oil.
Secondly, being cheap is nothing bad. It is, by itself, unrelated to quality. In fact, all else being equal, cheap ingredients should be preferred. We need to get away from the opinion that only expensive food is good. Price and quality are somewhat correlated, but this is not an absolute, and it most certainly is not a requirement.
I suppose it depends on the product, but if you are buying chocolate you want it to taste of chocolate, not nothing.
Instead of corporate, mass produced chocolates, please consider locally made, small batch chocolates if you truly want to support your chocolate industry. Also, its so much better.
Several years ago my daughter's school had a trip to a (small, local) chocolate factory.
For part of the trip the children queued up to dip a marshmallow into a vat of chocolate to taste it.
My daughter was one of the first in the queue, ate hers and went to the back of the queue for a second one... I was so proud 😁
How many drowned?
Who got the factory at the end??
... is the workforce paid???
Ah, it was full health & safety... large stainless steel vat containing hot molten chocolate, rotating stirring paddle, steps (unsecured) up to an open inspection hatch... but they wore hair nets...
And, I think they had that policy where all the staff could take as much chocolate as they wanted... so of course, all got sick & tired of that and never took any more.
Did you sign an NDA and this is the only version of the story you are legally allowed to repeat?
(I'm glad for stories like that - I lived visiting factories/companies and farms throughout all school days. Kids need to understand what the production factors are & how logistics connects us all.)
fuck. my chocolatier is probably going to be booked solid during valentimes. i should go on a date this saturday and get some sipping cocoa
Most of the American crap you listed only loosely qualifies as chocolate. I’m American and I don’t buy it.
Lindt is the good stuff. And the coconut version of the top middle item.
Lindt isn’t that good. They market themselves as premium but they kind of fail from a flavour perspective. Completely flat and uninteresting.
Didn't the CEO say he wouldn't even eat that shit?
I wouldn't call it shit, but it's very overpriced. It's like luxury brands like Gucci and what have you, you're paying for the brand and the quality isn't necessarily better. I'm no connoisseur or anything, but I've had some really good high quality chocolate a few times, and the depth in flavour you get is just something Lindt doesn't have.
With cacao harvests suffering due to global warming, and the working conditions generally being shit (slave labour, even) my approach is to treat chocolate like the luxury it is; splurge on it on occasion, get something from a reputable seller, if there's an artisanal chocolatier locally you can support local business and have a better idea of where the ingredients are from.
It’s the most ubiquitous chocolate we have in every store that isn’t Hersheys or Nestles trash. If you have a better suggestion that isn’t more pricy, then let us know.
Like I said, I treat it as a luxury. I buy from a local artisan, it gets expensive so I don't eat a whole lot. Flavour is fantastic and I know it's not from slavery, so that's all that matters to me.
I don't judge anyone for choosing Lindt. I just personally can't.
I think that was Campbell. But maybe them too and I'm ootl.
They changed the recipe a decade or so back. They were quite good before, not anymore.
I like the the dark chocolate in the blue wrapper. No bitter anftertaste and the cool truffle center is lovely. But hey, you have another suggestion on a cheap-ish chocolate that’s worth the calories, that is welcome.
Hershey's chocolate is so disgusting. They literally add vomit flavor to it.
It genuinely does taste like vomit. The the yanks have the audacity to laugh at British food!
They actually add that flavor to it because that's what their chocolate is known to taste like. And it's known to taste like that from going bad in WW2 rations.
So when I say that they add vomit flavor, that's not a joke. They literally add vomit flavor. It's so bad.
Edit: Butyric acid, I think or something like that
Yep, a colleague brought some back years ago when he visted the states and I tried some, I ended up spitting it out.
It's technically not even chocolate, it's "chocolate-flavored candy". I'd still fuck up a s'more though.
I started buying Tony's because I oppose slavery, I keep buying it because it's very good tasting
I’ve never due to the price, good to know though.
Completely unasked-for protip if you ever find yourself in Zurich - do the Lindt Home of Chocolate tour (building is fucking gorgeous and the tour is pretty cool), but don't be a sucker and visit the shop in the lobby. There's a factory outlet at the back of the property.
I know as a random American, chances are you won't need this information, but I feel I got played when I walked out with my fancy bag of redic-balls expensive chocolate a few months ago (part of that was the CAD > CHF exchange rate, but still)
I don't even know for sure if the chocolate is less expensive at the back, but noting the number of Swiss coming out of the outlet v. The Home of Chocolate, and difference in bag quality, it probably is.
Also you might see these cars on the way back there, which are adorable af.
Haribo and Chupa Chups now make chocolate?
(BTW +10 respect to Tony's for actually carrying about the sources of their ingredients).
Yes, double win if you buy Tony's pro european and anti slavery.
I really don't like their random chunks and the very big ones with their logo on it. I feel it makes it rather hard to enjoy eating them.
Put the chocolate in the fridge, that makes it easier to snap the larger bits in half 😉
You fucking monster!!
I like their reasoning behind the differently sized chunks ngl. According to text they have printed on the inside of the paper wrapping it's because in the chocolate industry (and many other places) wealth is also distributed unevenly: a few go grab all the too big chunks (big corpo grabbing everything for themselves) and the last ones (aka the ones who actually harvest the cocoa in this case) will be left with the tiny scraps only.
Now whether that absolutely needs to be put into the size of the pieces is debatable, I tend to have bars for myself so worst case I grab a knife and chop the big ones up. Or just bite them in half.
This feels very dependent on where in Europe you live. Up here in Sweden for instance we would most likely buy Cloetta or Fazer.
And fyi Marabou used to be Swedish but is now also owned by Mondalez together with some of the brands in the upper part of the illustration.
Or... Garant. They have surprisingly good chocolate, especially the dark ones with raspberries or cranberries are delicious.
I mean, I guess the non-dark ones may well be great as well, I just eat mainly dark chocolate ¯\(ツ)/¯
Yes, that's right, tastes good and they have some fair trade products. Apparently they manufacture in Italy.
I get the sneaking suspicion that OP is from Germany based on the selection presented :D
Fazer from Finland!
As milk chocolates go, Fazer is top-tier stuff.
Oh, Tony's is European? I've been trying to cut it down but you leave me no choice but to keep supporting them...
And they have their own fair sourcing of cocoa with no slave/child labour
I thought that they couldn't guarantee that, which is why "slave-free" had to be removed from the advertising?
Oh I didn't know that. I'll have to read more into it.
I switched from Tony to Claro a while back, as Tony still uses cocoa sources which cause deforestation, which is terrible for the environment.
Yep, it's a Dutch brand!
I can't recommend Tony's Chocolonely enough since they are the only chocolate maker [ I know of ] that actively tries to act against exploitation of cocoa farmers by paying a higher price per kilo. There is a John Oliver Episode on them :)
They are great, here in my hometown (Nottingham, UK) we have a little place called Louisa's, and as far as I'm aware, she's the only vegan chocolate maker in the UK. She does direct trade with small family farms so that everyone gets paid fairly (direct trade > fair trade), she also knows a lot about the cocoa plant and so will visit her farmers to help them grow better beans and ensure these farms are run in an ethical fashion.
Her chocolate is absolutely divine too, if you can, order from her.
Warning, it's pricey, but hopefully you'll understand why!
They also make good fucking chocolate.
Head and shoulders above most other crap, especially the ones on the top of the picture.
Definition of a conundrum: the only place around me that sells Tony's chocolate is Wal-Mart.
Do they have an online store in the US?
My only gripe is that it's impossible to break off two equal pieces, which makes sharing needlessly difficult.
Sh... share?
With people you like, you know?
That's true xDD
Who the fuck is buying Hersheys outside of the States anyway? Some sick fucks who enjoy the taste you get when you burp and throw up a little?
Nah, anyone in Europe who's eaten chocolate that's made from actual milk would automatically reject that shit out of hand. In fact, I'd sooner eat the abomination that Cadburys has become since they got bought out by the Yanks.
Butyric acid in case anyone is wondering. Literally a product of digestion, so you taste it when you throw up:
They literally put vomit flavor in their chocolate!!!
You'll be better if you don't eat any of that shit, European or not.
Are there any chocolate companies with well-documented supply chains that don't use child labor, slave labor, or otherwise exploit cocoa producers? Because everything I've seen and heard tells me that its best to just not eat chocolate at all.
I'd say Tony's would be your best bet? Not using slave labor is their stated goal, no idea how much they stick to it in reality
I'll look closer at them, thank you!
they allow some percentage of slave labor iirc
there's a problem with the picture - nutella is garbage, not chocolate.
And who doesnt remember the exquisite chocolate made by Chupa Chups and Haribo
does haribo just make gummy bears or is that only what they sell to americans? we tend to get the crappy versions, don't even get toys in our kinder eggs anymore because they could be a choking hazard.
They make lots of different stuff, but its all similiar to gummi bears in one way or another. They have tiny marshmallows and maoam style sweets as well.
They definitely don‘t sell chocolate though.
Happy Cola is my favorite Haribo candy.
Extra fun if you pull a dokaryan and soak them in rum for a week; you get little gummy rum & coke "jello shots"
My personal favourite is the Salty Sea they make. And Piratos, too. Not sure if a regional thing though, salmiakki isn’t all that popular in most of the world I guess. Their liqourice is okay, too, like in Color-rado.
I’m personally not a fan of their gummies though, or any ”fruity” sweets in general, so can’t attest to how they compare to those I mentioned.
i've been enjoying their twin snakes lately. they're sour!
mostly because i really miss my shock tarts.
I got pistachio spread in Aldi and the taste is similar it made me realise how it is all the same base ingredients, sugar and oil.
yup. nutella would bother me way less if they just owned up to it and called it hazelnut flavored spread.
Chances are it's made in the same factory too
the Ferrero brand make nutella and kinder bars, and they also financially support the zionist entity and their ongoing genocide of palestinians. If that's the kind of thing you'd rather not support i'd suggest avoiding ferrero (and nestle)
Plus they use a ton of palm tree oil, so there's the environmental impact in top of that.
Ritter Sport! Quadratisch, Praktisch, Gut
I really like Ritter choccolate, but I find the motto really funny: you can't get more German than describing your chocolate (something you eat) first as square, second as practical, and only third, and last, as good 😆
Weren't they still making business in Russia despite being called out several times?
I haven’t seen a retraction. In 2024 there were articles where the CEO basically doubled down on the decision to remain, making Ritter Sport a hard no for me.
Tbf, European chocolate has always been superior in my humble opinion.
I recommend Björnsted and Tom's as well.
It's not an opinion. Chocolate in the US tastes like wax and vegetable oil.
So that's why Milka became crap...
And the Hershey's version of Cadbury
Most of these aren't chocolate.
Either from a pretentious standpoint (Kinder? Nutella?) or realistic one (does Chupa Chups even make any chocolate items? Haribo *might*)
I tried a Toney Chocoloney not too long ago and GOD DAMN that was some good fucking chocolate.
Wasn't a fan of the way it's cut(?). It makes it real damn hard not to just eat the entire bar in one sitting when I can't just break off 2 or 3 squares.
Toney is also ethical chocolate as the aim is to make the chocolate trade more fair for chocolate farmers. That's also why it's a bit expensive and it's why it is divided the way it is. It's a symbolic representation of how unfairly the chocolate industry distributes the wealth. Next time you buy a Toney bar, try and read the text inside the wrapping paper. Their mission is stated there if I remember correctly.
Indeed! That's what led me to try it when I actually saw some for sale, as I already was familiar with their ethics and sustainability practices. 😃
Very interesting!! Always seen these bars around but didn't know that it was both delicious chocolate and trying to be somewhat ethical in the world of chocolate trade. Will have to try it sometime!
Ethically murdered cows.
But you can break off fun, quirkly-sized chunks!! Didn't I see somewhere it was supposed to be a map of something?
Also, I had no idea until this post that it wasn't made in the US. I love Chocolonely.
Edit, from the Chocolonely site:
I'd gone through about three bars (not in one sitting, lol) before I realised it's not Tony Chocoloney, it's Tony ChocoLONELY. And I felt bad and sad.
I still really want to visit their shop in Amsterdam though.
As a Belgian I have no clue how anyone can eat most of these, and that's including the European ones. Jacques, Callebaut or Galler are the only chocolate I actually buy. Cote Dor dark is decent though.
Or Leonidas, Neuhaus or any small chocolatier for chocolate "bonbons", the fancy filled chocolates.
I'm not Belgian but I find most supermarket chocolate to be disgusting
Galler is amazing! The chocolate, but also their spreads.
And it's fair trade
Now cross check that with https://www.slavefreechocolate.org/ethical-chocolate-companies to trim down that list quite a bit.
At the very least stick to fair trade certified brands.
There are a lot of European brands missing on that website, and judging by the plethora of random small American ones, I assume it's probably because it's made by an American.
It also weirdly puts Tony's in the boycott section, when it's basically the only big brand trying to actively change their whole supply chain (there's still progress to be made, but putting it alongside Nestlé? really?).
In any way, it's good advice in the end.
https://www.slavefreechocolate.org/news/2023/12/11/no-tonys-is-still-not-on-the-slave-free-chocolate-orgs-list-of-ethical-suppliers
They at least give a reason for Tony's to be on the boycott list. But then again, this is the last "news" article they published and it's now over two years old, so who can really say.
But doesn't that apply just as much to Fairtrade and other, similar certifications? Tony's is Fairtrade certified. Seems weird to give Fairtrade as a guide for brands not on the list but then exclude one specifically.
Oh, I did not catch that. It's entirely possible that Tony's being on the boycott list is based on outdated information. As far as I know it's just one person maintaining the page. I think you can also contact them.
Cocoa doesn't grow in Europe.
Correct! But Cocoa on it's own doesn't make chocolate
Your point being? This community isn‘t about exclusively promoting products that don’t have any ingredients from outside of Europe.
Calm down. I'm just telling that the terminology "European Chocolate" for the product that is made from 80-90% of non-european resources and done in an extremely trivial way (so it isn't even classical "your primitive resouses can be only useful after applying of our marvelous technology") is... well, funny.
No I don't say that it is an offtop, or incorrect or anything. Just funny. At least for me.
I see what you mean, but your belief that making chocolate from cocoa is „extremely trivial“ is simply wrong. For example, conching was invented in Europe and without it, chocolate would taste and feel totally different. The process is so important and difficult to get right, it often makes the biggest difference in chocolate quality to this day.
That is a mixer. Not really a rocket science. (I can prove my point: chocolate is produced in every country that actually wanted that. "Non-trivial" technologies are less widespread)
For now!
I‘d like to add Zotter to the list. Really good chocolate plus they only use ingredients from organic cultivation and pay their suppliers well.
Kinder is fairly terrible chocolate though, assuming it's even legal to call it that.
Yeah, it tastes like what I call 'Christmas chocolate'.
"Supermarket chocolate box sets"
it's basically chocolate flavoured sugar
Easy choice. I am American and I hate our chocolate. Absolutely dreadful.
You can find good local chocolates. As with so many things, you need to avoid the big businesses.
if you are in the bay area, check out dandelion in san francisco. they make pretty good chocolate. the stuff you can get in stores is all too chalky for me. theirs is not chalky.
"European brands", look inside, american trust funds...
Plain false.
Besides Lindt, which is publicly traded and has a minor share of American investors, almost all the other brands are family owned, which is rare in the modern food industry (Kinder, Nutella, Ritter, Knoppers, Toffifee and Haribo). Tony's is backed by the Belgian investment group Verlinvest.
As a Belgian, losing Côte d'Or still hurts
A lot of stuff are disappearing from the Belgian factories. They stopped producing the Melocakes a little while ago too.
but they'll never take our beer!
Good, not including Nestle.
Calling palm oil sugar chocolate is insane
Ritter Sport is the best, fight me irl if you disagree
yesn't. they have really good chocolate, but they refused to boycott russia back in 2022 (or 23?) and had a really low excuse, although most german companies stood in solidarity with ukraine.
Knoppers is a drug and I’m an addict
I love those ones but they only appear in my Aldi from time to time.
I tried knoppers a while ago. Goddamn those are fine. And the knopper bars.. Omg
I don't know, I always have the feeling that the Hanuta bars taste like what the Knoppers bars should have been
How ’bout some actual chocolate? https://www.fazer.fi/tuotteet/tuotemerkit/fazerin-sininen/
For those who don't speak Finnish...
Be careful of Cadbury, for those considering.
In the US it is mostly Hershey's, everywhere else it's fine.
Why would you get any of these when e.g. E. Wedel and Wawel exist? Poland has some of the best chocolate.
Never heard of Polish chocolate. Will have to find and see if I can get any way over here.
Can recommend Canadian choc as well: Purdy's and Laura Secord at the very least.
someone at work brought in Polish chocolate. i scoffed at first but then tried it. really good.
edit - checked when I got home. it is E. Wedel.
Any of these vegan?
The dark almond sea salt from Tony's is. Ritter Sport and Lindt also have some vegan products, Haribo probably too.
Awesome! Thanks so much!
Pretty sure a few of those American ones are the same brand.
Or just plainly and simply drop all those big chocolate brands. There is so many better, smaller chocolate brands in literally every european country.
Treets instead of M&Ms
Aren't they made by Mars?
No, Mars sold the brand to German company Katjes a few years ago.
That's good to ear! Also, Katjes is on the "verified alternatives list" of NoThanks. So it seems that they do not support Israel, which is great, IMO
Or Lacasitos, Spanish brand.
They also taste better. Unfortunately the regular ones are almost always sold out and I don't want the vegan type
Where is Tony’s from? I thought it’s uniquely USian?
Netherlands
Dutch, according to their Wikipedia page: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tony's_Chocolonely
Haribo makes chocolate?
they make chocolate covered marshmallows
Isnt Cote d’or made in the chocolate capital that is Belgium?
Some of the others shown don’t even have the minimum cacao requirement to be legally sold as chocolate according to Belgium law.
TIL that the brand was first bought by a swiss company and then pretty quickly after in 1990 that swiss company was bought by a US company.
Here i was assuming this was a valuable export for Belgium but they haven’t seen any of the profits in over 30 years..
haribo has chocolate?
chupa chups is european? I thought they were mexican. til they're spanish/dutch or something
Haribo has chocolate?!?
All I know is that Haribo sugar-free gummy bears give me the the runs, lol.
It's probably sweetened with one of the sweeteners that act as laxative in high doses. So maybe don't eat the whole bag in one sitting.
Yeah, it's exactly that. I think I'm just sensitive to sorbitol.
you gotta try the twin snakes. the orange and purple ones are divine
I will try whatever is a twin snakes, specifically the orange and purple snake, and not the Liquid and Solid Snake.
they look like
'Chupar' is 'to lick' in Spanish.
I'll let you guess what idioma folk speak in México
Latin?
close. South American
I only remember this stuff.
i like reeses tho 🥺 cant they just sell it to tony's?
Nudossi > Nutella
Katjes instead of Haribo any day.
Meh, both good. Trolli too.
Great. Now cross out all the ones which put milk in their "dark" chocolate, because that's an American thing.
European dark chocolate bars don't have different cacao percentages?
They do, but it's not because the cacao percentage is less than xx%, that there's milk in it. For my country (Belgium) dark chocolate typically has no milk in it, but I'm not going to claim that there doesn't exist Belgian dark chocolate with milk in it. There's no law against it afaik and there's so many different recipes, that it's bound to exist.
That there is no law for chocolate, but there is for mayonnaise in Belgium is downright absurd
What is the mayonnaise law? Eat it, or else?
https://www.belgiansmaak.com/belgian-mayonnaise/
It's actually the reverse. A bit of history:
Belgium used to have laws concerning the composition of both chocolate and mayonnaise. Afaik, they've both been abolished for about 2 decades now because it was deemed protectionism by the EU.
The chocolate law was replaced by a regional protection for "Belgian chocolate". By law, chocolate can only be marketed as Belgian chocolate if it adheres to the rules of the old law and is produced in Belgium. Which has been a huge marketing win for Belgian chocolate producers.
If I remember correct, the loss of the mayonnaise law lead to a massive sales boost for Devos Lemmens because buying that brand was the easiest way to make sure that you were buying real mayonnaise. Nowadays, most mayonnaise for sale in Belgium is clearly marked with things like "made according to traditional Belgian recipe", but there's no law anymore that is stopping Germans from trying to sell their mayonnaise as mayonnaise in Belgium. Aldi did try selling German mayonnaise for a while, but Belgians weren't buying it, so they've given up and they're now selling both Devos Lemmens and a store brand that is made according to the traditional recipe.
Edit to add: So there is a law for Belgian chocolate, but afaik there's no anti milk provision for dark chocolate in that law.
Please, don't bring logic or facts into my anonymous conversations with random, unseen, strangers on the internets.
There is a chocolate law in Belgium about the required minimum cacao % that most of the chocolate in the world does not meet.
Actually, I believe there is a European law that mandates minimums, although it's a feckin joke, 35% minimum for dark chocolate. SMH.
You also have Zotter in Austria
https://www.zotter.at/en/
With quite a few Fair Trade/Organic certifications https://www.zotter.at/en/zotter-experience-world/philosophy
As a european, who may or may not like chocolate a little too much, I concur.
Fazer and Cloetta missing from top eu choices
... What's the consensus on Läderach? Awesome chocolate, but...
What did I miss about Läderach?
- https://www.nau.ch/news/stimmen-der-schweiz/cancel-culture-wehleidige-weicheier-65780420
If you google around a bit they're apparently very fundamentalist religious people. The type we're currently criticizing in the US.
That's why some of the swiss call it "Fundi-Schoggi"
Fu
ndi-SchoggiCome on! I just moved to Switzerland! I thought it was some wholesome swiss company. What else do I need to avoid?
Nestlé, UBS, Fifa, Glencore... Olten... 😬
Three of those are obvious. Just learned about Glencore. But why Olten? Afaik that's just a city?
Yes, it's just a meme.
So off topic, but what did Olten do? Help me integrate by dissing the right cities.
When we traveled to Switzerland, we stuffed 15 kg of Lindt in our suitcases.
Hershey's is not chocolate. I'm not sure what it is but it's definitely not chocolate.
It's solidified vomit.
Please support Tony’s Chocolonely- they actively work to make sure that their Cocoa suppliers get a living wage, far more than what virtually any other Cocoa buyers pay.
As a bonus, their chocolate is pretty tasty too!
Recently i tried to withdraw any sugar but I couldn't persist in this sacrifice, and now I am again a sugar slut. My latest discovery - caramel popcorn from Stork (the Toffifee company, while Toffifee are also delicious).
air pop your popcorn, use equal parts butter (just your regular amount) and brown sugar, add a little cinnamon and your regular amount of salt, and you've got churro corn. i dropped sugar entirely except that so i could binge on it.
With the current price of cocoa impacting supermarket chocolate, I encourage everybody to check out prices at specialized shops. I’m buying excellent chocolates (“bonbons”) at the same price of store brand regular chocolate bars.
Maybe a bit niche, but Klaus are my absolute favourite in the entire universe.
Oh good. Some of those are my go to sweets.
Phew! If Nutella ever goes evil, I am so utterly fucked.
Unfortunately you are fucked. Child labour for nut picking and unethical palm oil to get your depression started.
Somehow, I already knew something like this would be happening.... We simply cannot have nice things in this world.
How about those dark chocolate bars you find in Aldi/Hofer?
Choceur is Fair Trade, so I hope/assume it's one of the better options.
I'll stick with Coffee Crisp myself.
Venchi
I still wonder if Kinder means kinder in English or Kinder in German
The second one
It all makes sense now. 🤯
Jokolade in Germany: https://jokolade.de/
Cote d'or, Hershey's, Reese's and Oreos are objectively disgusting anyway. Peanut M&Ms are barely tolerable. Mars is ok if you go to the trouble of cutting it up and putting it in the fridge. Snickers has the wrong name. The only thing I'd say tastes good in that block is the Toblerone and I'm fine giving it up for ethical reasons.
You forgot Nestlé, they're also european
But also pure evil
I was going to comment that Nestlé was European but evil as fuck.
I don’t think it’s possible to overstate it. So I’ll go again.
Nestlé are evil, exploitative assholes who are directly and intentionally responsible for many innocent deaths.
Arguably the most evil company in the world.
Maybe but still, fuck Nestlé.
There's a useful website called that - fucknestle.art
A list of Nestle owned brands and a list of Nestle "controversies".
Remember, friends don't let friends buy Nestlé
Based????