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You also have Zotter in Austria
With quite a few Fair Trade/Organic certifications https://www.zotter.at/en/zotter-experience-world/philosophy
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.
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.
Yes, that’s right, tastes good and they have some fair trade products. Apparently they manufacture in Italy.
I mean, I guess the non-dark ones may well be great as well, I just eat mainly dark chocolate ¯\(ツ)/¯
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!
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!!!
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.
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
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?
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!
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*)
