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‘I took two bites and had to spit it out’: candy makers are phasing out real cocoa in chocolate
(www.theguardian.com)
You vill eat the chocolate-style cube.
this post was submitted on 12 Mar 2026
517 points (99.4% liked)
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All chocolate in the future will now be white chocolate.
How to say you come from the States without saying you come from the States.
Pretty interesting that this was something I remember being warned about 26 years ago
A buddy of mine has everything but his birthday is coming up …. I found the ideal indulgence: a $20 chocolate bar!
No it’s not one of those monsters, it’s normal sized. But it’s single sourced beans, gold medal award winning, local farm fresh dairy , infused with whiskey from a local distillery. That’s something he’s never had!
wf sells that kind of bougie chocolate in thier "gourmet specialty" sections, almost nobody buys it though, only as a gift since its expensive asf, fair trade single origin i believe too.
I recently had something sold as chocolate that contained 0% cocoa, its just a chunk of palm oil. First time I have ever had chocolate so bad I threw it in the bin. I can also taste it in Cadburys now, or they have increased their palm oil amount since I had eaten it previously.
I will be checking ingredient lists more often when buying chocolate now. If palm oil is the main ingredient it can fuck off.
I mean, isn't "white chocolate" 0% cocoa?
No solids, it should be made of cocoa butter. In the shit one I had they replaced all of the cocoa butter with palm oil. Tbh I don't think they should legally be able to call it chocolate.
Funny how the milk industry fought so hard to ban the use of milk on vegetable products. Now they are all called drink. But there was no confusion to the public just a dick move.
Yet here where the intention is clear to see something which is not it, this is magically ok.
Oh yeah I remember that. Because of their pettiness I stopped using milk, only thing I used it for as porridge and I use water instead now. Looked it up and you get the water boiling and can cook it at a higher temperature without it burning to the pan. Ends up fairly creamy still without using cows milk. Also costs less to make.
Which country did that? Cause here in the US, we still have milk everything. Oat milk, almond milk, soy milk, you name it.
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cocoa butter, sugar, milk solids. No cacao.
I'm quite glad I have these in my local store.
https://eat-love-chocolates.myshopify.com/products/moule-au-beurre-darachide
They're about 5$ for one cup. Considering Reese goes for 3$ for the regular pack of 3 in vending machines, I think it's fine. The 5$ cup is much more than 5 times better than one Reese cup. More like 500 times.
hershey isnt real chocolate, they add a bitterent that why it taste like shit, i think its butyric acid.
Mmm, pukey
It doesn't taste like shit, it tastes like spoiled milk
Uhhh the finest sour milk the free market can bare pls
the finest one is when it LOOKS like tofu.
~~Candy makers~~ capitalists
FTFY
Yeah it would be really nice if the media could distinguish a bit better between "actual expert at thing X that has done it for a long time and gives a shit" versus "people/corporations that started with tons on money and think they could end up with slightly more by misleading fans of X and building the infrastructure to efficiently enshittify it"
edit to add: I was supposed to quip at the end of my post that oh yeah, the media and journalism are "products" that are no different, and in fact worse. Look at who owns the big outlets. gross.
Another way of reminding us there is enshittification.
Nearly no one touches the chocolates at most supermarkets I went to. Far cry from when 40 years ago, workers from overseas would include chocolate bars in care packages.
That real cocoa are mostly from developing countries, not all are politically stable.
We have an inflation target now, they either raise prices or shrinkflate. Its much easier to shrinkflate.
I only eat the opposite type of chocolate, that being chocolate so dark its 90-97% coco content. I want my chocolate so natural, earthy, and bitter that it tastes similar to chocolate (that's just my preference not that it makes me any better or worse than anyone else).
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There is no corner they aren't willing to cut.
I took two bites and had to spit it out
That's how I reacted the first time I tasted Hershey's chocolate.
Inb4: butyric acid
A somehow necessary ingredient in Hershey's which lingers unpleasantly on the palate, otherwise known as a stomach acid which imbues your vomit with the unmistakeable flavor of vomit
^Whyyyyyyyyy^
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Gotta love capitalism
It's not capitalism alone, it's climate change also that is disrupting cocoa yields and makes prices go through the roof.
Climate change and capitalism are inseparable
Well, it would be an interesting thought experiment if instead of capitalism, socialism had won in 1989. I can tell you one thing from my own knowledge: at least the soviets didn't give sh*** about the environment. Again: not defending capitalism here.
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I don't understand how they cant see that once we leave we leave. If you bite into that and hate it; its a cycle broken and we we unlikely to trust the product ever again.
It's what happened with Bassets Winegums. Used to be my absolute favourite candy. Wife came back from the UK with a box,I opened it and the taste was... Different. Googled - turns out they changed the recipe after being purchased by some large conglomerate. I haven't had one of their candies since 13 years ago. Fucking idiots.
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Well obviously it sucks that the fake cocoa is disgusting, but I have to say I kinda am for the effort of trying to create an alternative, given how the cocoa producers are notorious for exploiting child labor and how terrible it is for the environment
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“One German brand, the Nestlé-owned Choco Crossies, recently announced it was eliminating cocoa altogether from its new Snack Vibes line, replacing it with ChoViva, a lab-grown chocolate alternative made from fermented sunflower and grape seeds.”
How the fudge did we end up in this dystopian nightmare? ಥ_ಥ
Cyanide is "natural". Not everything "natural" is good for you. I'm all for alternatives, although as with any other thing, they need to study them to make sure they're safe. Like aspartame, which is one of the most studied substances on earth. It's safe. And it's a fantastic tool to have - saying this as a diabetic, but artificial sweetners gives us the ability to make tasty foods that save calories/carbs, which is something most people can use.
So I don't know about ChoViva in specific, but if there's an alternative to cocoa that doesn't rely on slave labour and isn't harmful… I'm all for it.
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This has been that way for a while now. Reeses and Hershey's suck. They use a PINCH of cocoa powder and their chocolate tastes and feels like wax. The peanut butter filling is basically peanut flavored sawdust. They spend crazy amounts of money reduce ingredient costs while still maintaining a somewhat edible product. They end up with "chocolate favored wax/oil and sugar". Boycott them. You can get way better chocolate at Aldi.
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Hey I started a new community: Enshitification.
I posted this Reese's article the other day.
It's for articles like this but also personal experiences, like things you noticed going to shit.
So if you want to rant a bit about a product quality decrease, feel free to post about it there.
I didn't know Hershey's used Cocoa, I thought the main ingredient was vomit.
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