Why are British Chocolates SO much better than US Chocolates?

[quote]the Brit ones are always less cloyingly sweet

It really is that simple. Stuff in America is FAR too sweet. It is one of the first things people not from here notice when they move here, how fucking sweet everything in.

You have to ask?

I loved watching the Buzzfeed videos where "your average Yank" (read: hipster trash "journalist" working for Buzzfeed") tries something British. I remember one odious prick saying that he found the concept of Jaffa cakes made him "Angry".

How the fuck can a Jaffa cake, one of mankind's greatest inventions, make a Yank angry? I mean, it's a soft, yet crispy base on which a disc of deliciously flavoured orange jelly (jello, for the Americans) is lovingly placed before being coated in a thin, fine layer of milk chocolate. How the HELL could someone find that makes them "Angry"? Any American I've given or sent treats to, I always include a pack of Jaffa cakes and the reaction is pretty much always the same - "dear god, thank you and send me more!"

On a more serious note, one thing that I find disturbing is that whilst we use colourings and flavourings over in the UK and EU, our colourings and flavourings are not as artificial as the ones used in the States. And we don't use some ingredients that are quite common in the US. The one thing I've noticed is that our sweets/candies are not as sweet as those in the States, and fruit-flavoured products are more...natural in flavour. But chocolate is a weird one. But it's easy to explain. It's about cocoa ratio. To qualify as chocolate in the UK, chocolate must contain a minimum 20% cocoa solids. whereas in the States, that percentage is 10%. Then you have other things like the products that manufacturers will put in to extend the shelf life. But, simply put, less cocoa means a less chocolatey product. And - as every Brit will tell you - Hershey's tastes like a used condom filled with cat shit compared to Dairy Milk. Hell, both taste like grotty fish-jizz compared to the budget brands you can pick up at Lidl and Aldi. But, simply put - American chocolate *really* can't hold a candle up to the awesomeness of a good Cadbury's Dairy Milk UK bar.

Again? We do this thread every month.

Were jaffa cakes always popular in the UK, r3? I grew up in the UK in the 80s, but family moved to US in '89. Never had Jaffa Cake until I saw one in a British food store in LA several years ago.

As for Hershey, I think you're being too generous. Beyond their dreadful Hershey chocolate bars, they also own the Cadbury trademark in the US and produce a subpar version of Dairy Milk Bars and Kit Kat bars.

R3 - all you needed to say is 'HFCS'.

Cadbury chocolate is available in many countries, and tastes different in each. My local Cadbury factory says it is because they use local milk and it affects the taste that much. So the milk could be a factor. Cadbury has been stuffing around with its recipes in recent years though, using different (cheaper) sugars and probably fats, and the mouth-feel has changed dramatically. It may be that Britain is still using more original ingredients. New Zealand Cadbury tastes better, and has a better mouth-feel, than Australian.

However R1 is also right. Even American bread tastes distinctly sweet to foreign palates.

R4 - I think it's because they're pretty cheap and cheerful. A close-runner for their popularity would be the milk chocolate digestive (with tea) and the Hob-Nobs. I also think they're popular because they're, well, somewhat traditional. Most Brits would probably have went round to their gran's, for example, and been given a cup of tea and a Jaffa Cake in their childhood.

But, yeah, Hershey's need to really put put down. There's no excuse for their shit.

I might be wrong, but I believe it's the ratio of milk fats to vegetable fats in the chocolate with the British using more dairy fat than Americans who use a vegetable fat. I don't believe the sugar content is much different between the two, though the British chocolate might have 10% less. They both contain much more filler than the European versions. When the EU was working out their trade laws a large disagreement surfaced over whether or not British chocolate should be sold as actual chocolate.

No, seriously, it's the HFCS that makes U.S. chocolate taste like shit.

I confess I love (U.S.) Cadbury bars; I don't know any better. I also love Aldi chocolate hazelnut bars.

[quote]on which a disc of deliciously flavoured orange jelly (jello, for the Americans)

It's not jello. Jello would melt within a few hours. It is indeed jelly or jam.

[quote]On a more serious note, one thing that I find disturbing is that whilst we use colourings and flavourings over in the UK and EU, our colourings and flavourings are not as artificial as the ones used in the States

Doesn't the EU have stricter standards about food additives (I would include color and flavorings additives) than the U.S.?

I don't know if this is the case in Europe, but in the U.S. the quality of ingredients has declined over time as manufacturers focus on quantity and pricing over quality. There are items that seem to have maintained the same prices over the years or actually declined in price while inflation does its work in other sectors of the economy.

Supposedly Hershey's basic chocolate bar has never had HFCS.

It's not just HFCS in American chockie, it's waxy ingredients designed to keep the chocolate from melting in the US's far warmer and definitely more humid climate.

R12: it's not jam or what you would call "jelly" in the States. If you nibble off all the sponge base and then nibble off the chocolate coating (it's a tough job, but this is for SCIENCE, damnit), what you're left with it a disc of orange jelly (or, jello). If it were jam, it would ooze off.

Now, the one other biscuit I've sent to the States (and I get a lot of "Oh my god, send more!") are Tunnocks teacakes. These are...*exquisite*.

Take a disc of crumbly soft shortbread and then dollop a splodge of Italian meringue (it's not marshmallow, not like the equally fabulous Canadian Whippet) and *then* coat that in either plain chocolate or milk chocolate. The Tunnocks teacake has legendary status here in Scotland and the design of the wrapper is as much an icon as the teacake. I'm serious - you can find the wrapper design on pretty much anything: mugs, tea-towels, posters, dancers at the Commonwealth Games in 2014.

UK DLer here. I think UK chocolate uses a higher percentage of cocoa and full fat milk than US chocolate.

I definitely noticed a decline in quality when Cadbury's was bought by the Americans. Stuff like Dairy Milk began to taste more soapy and waxy once the Hershey people began fucking around with cheaper ingredients. I switched to Galaxy milk chocolate which still tastes the same.

Growing up in the UK and seeing Hershey bars in loads of films, I had this notion that Hershey was the holy grail of chocolate. I'll never forget my first trip to New York about a decade ago, I got into Manhattan and the first thing I did was buy a Hershey bar to see what all the fuss was about.

That first bite into the corner, the anticipation of all my taste senses coming alive…they did, with the taste of cat vomit. It didn't even taste like chocolate. I couldn't believe how disgusting it was, I was so disappointed. I had to throw the rest of the bar away. And now the Hershey bastards are doing their utmost to bring cat vomit to the UK.

Oh, and the evil Hershey fuckers have also tried to fuck up Creme Eggs, making them smaller and the chocolate shell thinner. Creme Eggs are the dog's bollocks, they're so lush. I swear, if Hershey fucks up Creme Eggs even more I'm gonna be on the warpath!

Every chocolate in America is milk chocolate and tastes like overly-sweetened wax.

brits add much more salt to the chocolate, which really brings out the flavor, you numbskulls.

British chocolate contains more vanillin.

Because they aren't so obsessed with the 'hood mentality and integrate better into society.

Canadian chocolate is different from U.S. chocolate. I go to a local store that imports chocolate bars available in the U.S., and the taste is much different. Much more sweet, more waxy and more artificial. It also leaves a funny aftertaste.

On the subject of things tasting sweeter in the USA, I couldn't believe how sweet american corn is. It's like it's doused in sugar.

r22 are you talking about hoods as being cut vs uncut. you mean brits have uncut schlongs which makes the choc taste diff.

r23 that sounds racists to me

Cadbury Dairy Milk is the best tasting chocolate on the planet.

Cadbury mini eggs rule.

Dark Chocolate is a lie!

Ummm... R25.... okay?

Saccharose more yummy than HFCS.

Umm, corn IS sugar.

That'll do R10.

That'll do.

It's sugar on steroids, R29.

Because sooner or later, the U.S. needs to realize how evil it is!! Evil, I say!!! And while you're at it, get off my lawn!

I had to make up for giving them bad teeth.

Ummm, there is corn that don't taste as sugary as american corn, fat fuck R29

R16, I think the confusion here is with your use of the brand name "Jello" when describing the gelatin-based orange layer of snack. Jello as prepared by the package instructions is what Americans are going to think of when you used the brand name, and that product would never hold up in the Jaffa Cakes.

R33's gonna get smacked with the shit-bra!

Start a corn syrup blog!

American chocolate usually isn't dutch processed, is it? That makes a difference in the taste. American chocolate may have vegetable oil in it instead of cocoa butter. I have read that American chocolate is bitter to the taste compared to European chocolates.

r24, there are different types of corn. There are varieties that are bred to be sweet, for ex. sweet white corn available in the Summer and usually eaten off the cob. Maybe this is the corn you ate? Sweet white corn is very sweet compared to other varieties. Then there are flour corns, and so on.

Yes, R37. It was exactly this I ate - white corn off the cob.

R3 is right, Jaffa cakes are the food of the gods. My company sent me to the UK for two years and it was a revelation. Food was great. Not just decent, really great. The choice in the shops was phenomenal, fresh produce was really fresh and cheeses... Oh my god the cheeses! Stuff that we would consider fancy artisinal cheeses were everywhere, not just in cities.

When I came back I got a shock, I hadn't realised how overly sweet everything was in the US. Bread here is nasty. It tastes like fluffy, chemical laden nasty sugary death. I haven't eaten chocolate since I came back, Hershey's smells like vomit. That's not an over reaction, it really does have a smell of vomit when you've been away any length of time and haven't been around it.

We need to take a stand and stop letting huge conglomerates feed swill to the masses and tell us it's manna. The belief that we have better food here is risible when you take an honest look at it.

There are thousands of uses for corn, all of which I will tell you about right now!

I became curious, so I looked up the ingredient list for Jaffa Cakes. The orange layer is neither British jelly nor American Jello. It is not gelatin-based at all. They use pectin, which I guess would technically make it an orange jam (or American jelly, a seedless jam).

On the chocolate subject, I once tried a Russian chocolate bar, brought back from Russia by a friend. However inferior a Hershey's bar may be compared to the world's best chocolate, that is how far inferior this russian bar was to a Hershey's. It was a sort of gray-ish brown, but not the grayness of bloomed chocolate. There were gritty little bits of some unidentified filler, and instead of any natural chocolate flavor to it, there was only a chemical impersonation. Truly vile.

Well that explains A LOT about the Russian disposition r41. No wonder they all seem so gloomy.

Charbonnel et Walker is supposed to be one of the best brands of British chocolate. I tried it and was very underwhelmed. I prefer Godiva.

I had the same reaction to Godiva. It's very "meh" compared to some of the Swiss and Belgian chocolatiers.

Godiva weren't really widely known in Britain except when they tried to sue a pub in Switzerland over it's name, Lady Godiva. The organiser behind the Lady Godiva day/procession in Coventry, England called them out on it, pointing out that the Belgian chocolate company were using English history and heritage to peddle their wares while trying to browbeat a small Swiss pub into submission. There's now a Boycott Godiva campaign. It's like they've never even heard of the Streisand effect.

If you ask the Scandinavians most will say everything is so sweet in the UK.

There are a couple of NYC British import shops that were importing British chocolates. They have been sued by Hershey to stop importing and no longer sell the vastly superior chocolate.

[quote]Godiva weren't really widely known in Britain except when they tried to sue a pub in Switzerland over it's name, Lady Godiva.

I wouldn't have thought this sort of thing happens in Europe like it does in the U.S. And to sue over the name of a historical figure.

I see the Cadbury Troll is having her menses.

The once a month "British vs American candy" thread.

Kit Kat bars are a Nestle product - except in the U.S. where Hershey is licensed to produce them.

A European Kit Kat bar has cleaner flavors and the contrast of chocolate and wafer are paramount. A U.S. Kit Kat bar is primarily sweet, a muddy. mucky sort of sweetness, and the wafer seems more a filler than a point of contrast (either in taste or texture.)

I'm not big on candy bars, but like to toss a Kit Kat into a carry-on bag for a long flight. I learned not to bother with flights from the U.S., the Kit Kat will turn into a mucky, melted mess even in a cool cabin. A Kit Kat bought in Europe will retain its form and taste even in a fairly warm cabin. In fact the only thing that improves the U.S. version is to refrigerate them: the taste of the chocolate and wafer is no better, but at least the thing firms up into a proper solid.

I ate a Hershey's bar a few years ago. I can only liken it to eating freshly laid macadam paving :/

I ate Swedish chocolate yesterday and it was boring. It had very little taste.

What's with the candy obsession on this board?

Oh wait -- this is the board where threads about bariatric survey fill up within an hour.

Where someone casually mentions that they started walking three times a week last month and have already lost 30lbs and they only need to lose another 85 more lbs to be overweight but not obese.

Where people swap candy recipes so they can make tons of their own stuff at home so nobody will see them buying so much candy in the shop.

I guess that's why there are constant threads about candy, which is supposed to be a treat for children.

R47 Obviously Hershey didn't want Americans realizing how shit their chocolate bars are when compared to British chocolate bars, but how could they stop a shop from selling imported, British chocolates? That would be like Burger King or McDs shutting down every restaurant that makes fresh burgers using quality beef.

I want a chocolate covered cherry with cum as the cream of choice.

R16, you've convinced me, I'm getting a delivery of teacakes soon.

Didn't care much for their caramel wafers.

[quote]I had the same reaction to Godiva. It's very "meh" compared to some of the Swiss and Belgian chocolatiers.

I brought back a large box of expensive Godiva chocolates from Belgium on a friend's advice. They went down like a cup of cold sick. Even our food hoover of a dog turned his nose up at them. I suppose I should have stuck to Leonidas.

Godiva is owned by the Campbell's Soup Co.

British chocolates taste like shit, too. Swiss/Austrian/German chocolates are the best.

Hershey's tastes like vomit because it has butyric acid in it, which is one of the main compounds in human vomit (and the component of vomit that causes the distinctive smell).

Unusual choice.

R60 glad I read to the end of this thread as my comment similar to your was & is, Hershey's chocolate smells like vomit & tastes even worse. I've always preferred Nestle's chocolate.

Many people refuse to purchase Nestle products. I wouldn't have bought the British candy bars simply because they are Nestle products.

I like Swiss chocolates, and also Perugina. I sometimes purchase chocolate from a local candy maker, but even these don't compare to European chocolates . After eating these, I can never go back to Hershey's. Never. Why doesn't Hershey just make chocolate good, like imported chocolates? The worst chocolate I ever ate was from Lithuania. It was like eating brittle, brown wax.

R57, dogs are allergic to chocolates, asshole.

Sorry but dark chocolate M&M's are like crack. They're that good.

Chocolate can be toxic and even fatal in dogs because they metabolise theobromine slowly. Hopefully R57 is kidding.

R62 what about the British candy that isn't made by Nestlé? Like Cadburys, Mars, Green & Blacks etc? Green & Blacks Spiced Chilli chocolate is like crack.

Green and Blacks make some exquisite chocolate. My favourite was Cherry. It was pure fucking decadence in a bar. I'm also partial to their Maya Gold and their Ginger bars too - especially Ginger. I've been known to melt a bar or three of that good stuff down and use as a cake topping. It causes the good-looking rugby-type in my office to groan uncontrollably. Heh.

I boycott Nestle but I never particularly liked their chocolate anyway. For me it's always been about Cadburys. Though Hotel Chocolat and Divine are the best if you want something a bit fancier. Divine do a dark chocolate and orange bar which really lives up to its name.

My mother loves Thorntons but it's far too sweet for me.

R68 Thorntons toffee is amazing. Someone sent me a tray of treacle toffee with a little hammer for breaking it up last Christmas. Dear God it was good. I intended to have a very small piece every now and then but suddenly the whole tray was gone in under two days.

Those little hammers are great when you go vandalising Christmas decorations.

A night of gin and regret r70 or a regular festive tradition?

They're so good but it results in bad British teeth.

oooh so expensive!

I've started seeing these in grocery stores in California. So good.

What's with all the bumping of two- and three-year-old food threads today?

Is someone on a new diet, and jonesing for noshes?

R75, it's Poo Shoes. This is what xe does. We're all just accessories.

OP, you type fat.

Why is this ancient thread bumped?

But yeah, American commercial chocolate sucks in comparison to UK brands now.

I still miss Joseph Schmidt chocolates out of SF. They were bought out by a Hershey subsidiary which had promised to continue the brand but immediately shut it down, because, you know, competition.

Lilac chocolates in NYC is still good but they now charge 3 or 4 times what they did just a few years ago. Fuck them.

R77 is the current 2015 BUMP TROLL.

DIE IN A GREASEFIRE YOU VILE INSANE MANIAC

I used to travel to London several times a year, and would bring back the 700g bars of Cadbury Dairy Milk for friends. An easy comparison is to look at the ingredients label. The UK Cadbury lists "Milk" as the first/most prevalent component. The US-made Cadbury lists HFCS as the first ingredient.

True friends would get Belgian chocolate (or Cantillon bottles) when I returned from Brussels.

American study, involving 7.5 lakh COVID-19 patients, finds individuals with blood group 'O' less likely to contract coronavirus

r75

Miss Landers, Larry and the Beaver were talking after the bell rang. I told them just because you weren't here doesn't mean they could talk, but they talked anyway

I don't think it's just the HFCS.

Hershey chocolate has ALWAYS tasted worse than Cadbury. Even in the '60s before HFCS was everywhere.

It has always seemed waxy to me.

According to this 2015 article, vegetable oil helps make British Cadbury taste the way it does. The FDA doesn't allow its use in chocolates, only cocoa butter:

[quote]Protests to the contrary notwithstanding, the ingredients in Cadbury chocolate items produced on opposite sides of the Atlantic are demonstrably different. One big reason for that is a regulation from the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA). A layperson might think the subjectively superior flavor of British Cadbury bars comes from better cocoa or more milk. The secret is actually vegetable oil, which the FDA will not allow to be added to anything that will then be labeled "milk chocolate." In the U.S., only cocoa butter may be used. Not so in the United Kingdom.

I'm a Flake guy myself . . .

Jaffa cakes are disgusting. Strong chemical taste.

My UK friends request I buy them hershey's cookies and milk choc. They love those and I think more expensive over there.

I like time out bar they have there. and Mars bar is so overrated! there is nothing inside!!!

My fav all time is snickers bar.

Their cadbury choc is pretty decent, they had a special edition last year with orange bits and another with coffee. I think it was a contest. I bought like 30, 10 of each flavor for my American friends when I visited.

This question has a factual answer. Hershey's discovered their milk supply had gone off and using curdled milk gave the chocolate a sour flavor, which they decided to market as a virtue. So it all started as a way to save money and differentiate their product. Now, the process engineers have ditched the sour milk and turned to lipolysis and butyric acid to provide the same effect.

Not that you asked, but the best chocolate I've ever eaten in the US is from the Wilbur chocolate plant in Lititz, PA. I don't know if the plant is still there, but you can still buy their chocolate, and they claim to use the same recipe. It's been my experience that if you eat five Wilbur Buds, you'll feel like you shot meth.

Why are American cut dicks so better than cheesy stank sleeve British dicks?

You wait, Brexit will be the great equalizer and British chocolates will start tasting like shit too

You people who scream about a Hershey’s have obviously never traveled the world & had locally made yogurt in places like Central Asia. A few nice glasses of fermented camel’s milk or fermented horse milk or some nice yak butter tea in Mongolia & you’d be begging for a Hershey bar. Then there’s sour cream right here in the US and plenty of people use sour milk to make cottage cheese at home.

> how could they stop a shop from selling imported, British chocolates? > That would be like Burger King or McDs shutting down every restaurant > that makes fresh burgers using quality beef.

r54, it's because of the printing on the wrappers and the brand name embossed into the chocolate.

Legally, in the US, a "Cadbury's Milk Chocolate bar" from the UK is neither "milk chocolate" nor "Cadbury's". "Milk chocolate" has a very specific legal definition that it doesn't meet, and it's neither identical nor authorized by the owner of the "Cadbury's" brand name in the US.

If an importer paid UK Cadbury's to manufacture chocolate bars branded differently (say, "UKadbury's"), and labeled them with something like "chocolaty candy with the flavor of UK Cadbury's Milk Chocolate" and prominent legal disclaimers that it was neither manufactured nor authorized by Hershey, owner of the Cadbury's trademark in the US, they'd be fine.

They *might* be OK if they marked the UK labels in a way that invalidated them (say, a black "X" on all sides, covered by adhesive labels suitable for the US)... but Hershey would still bitch if "Cadbury" were embossed into the bar itself.

Part of the problem is that US trademarks are legally "fragile" and MUST be "vigorously" defended to avoid losing them to "dilution". So, even IF Hershey doesn't care, it has to sue anyway because if they didn't, someone ELSE could cite Hershey's indifference in THIS case to attempt invalidation on the "Cadbury" trademark. It's the same reason why Nintendo has to be assholes about stamping out fan sites in the US. If they didn't, and allowed them to exist without action, others could use that inaction against them.

In theory, they could license the trademark's use... but that causes a new set of legal problems. Suppose an American suffered some real or perceived harm, and convinced a jury that it was 99.99997% the fault of "Joe Klein Importing company", 0.00002% the fault of "Brooklyn Bodegas, Inc", and 0.00001% the fault of Hershey (for knowingly licensing their trademark) & got awarded $20 million for some insane reason. Joe Klein is one person working out of his garage, and wiping him out leaves $19.94 million unpaid. Brooklyn Bodegas is owned by a family with three stores and few durable assets, and wiping THEM out leaves $16 million unpaid. Under the tenet of "Joint & Several Liability", Hershey gets stuck with the remainder, even though it was only found to be 0.00001% at fault.

^-- THIS is why we can't have nice things in the US.

Actually dark chocolate is becoming more and more popular in the US.

Brits always base their image on what America is like from fifty years ago . They think we all still prefer plain Hershey's bars.

There are experts on every topic on DL. It’s so impressive. From diseases you can get from rimming to the subtle differences in British and American chocolate, DL has an expert for it.

Who is more learned than we?

Different countries, different additives. For example, in the USA we use high fructose corn syrup in many (if not most) mass produced sweet products. They use other types of sugar in other countries. In Mexico for example they use cane syrup in their Coca Cola bottling plants and many in other sweet products. Some say it doesn't taste any different, but others say the difference in taste is noticeable.

Hersheys' use of butyric acid is "99%" of the reason.

Sugar vs HFCS makes no statistically-discernible difference to the taste of most products, and only affects texture of things like baked goods (sugar caramelizes & adds physical bulk). HFCS has issues, but LITERAL taste is almost never one of them.

Oils vs fats, and ingredient ratios, obviously matter... but butyric acid accounts for nearly all the "taste" difference.

As for "why" they use it, aside from being cheaper to make using BA, kids & fat people overwhelmingly prefer that taste for some bizarre reason. Kids & fat people consume most chocolate, but parents buy most. Hershey is afraid that if they sold non-butyric chocolate, nature-freak moms who hate anything "artificial" (and adults who prefer its taste) would buy it instead & give it to kids, kids would eat less because they didn't like it as much, and they'd sell less total chocolate per year.

The logic is slightly tortured & weird, but that's their line of reason.

At least in Europe,, they aren't allowed to use GMO

[quote] As for "why" they use it, aside from being cheaper to make using BA, kids & fat people overwhelmingly prefer that taste for some bizarre reason.

They prefer it because that's how it's a;ways been made.

You change the taste of something incredibly popular that has been around for decades at your peril, as the Coca-Cola people discovered in the 1980s.

What always astonishes me about this debate (which has been done on DL more times than I'd like to count) is that the British people act like if they come here they will somehow be FORCED to eat a Hershey bar against their wills.

If you don't care for it, then don't eat it. There are plenty of ways to get sugar elsewhere, and in this age of globalization it's pretty easy almost everywhere to make British or Belgian chocolate available to you if you prefer it.

PROBLEM SOLVED!

US stuff i know has high fructose corm syrup--makes it taste burnt and kind of dirty. dont get a lot of brit chocolate but some german stuff that also tastes better to me. american consumers have just been turned into mindless clones and slaves to the ag industry which derives from lobbies in congress. gotta get rid of all that corn. live in midwest, pass by an adm plant when the wind's right, it smells the same way. corn syrup, is my guess, its in everything now

I am assuming it is still the same but the Europeans/British were not allowed to put the crap in their chocolate that we do and call it chocolate. They had specific rules as to what could be in chocolate. In the US we ruin everything so those at the top can make more money. I believe we also use a percentage of wax in our chocolate which is not allowed in Europe.

didnt know about the butyric acid mentioned upthread. isnt that the shit in high school chem class that smelled like a bad egg farts? jesus, no wonder it tastes like crap. And i never noticed til we bought our own house and had leftover halloween candy. jesus, this wasnt the way candy tasted when i was a kid. being a fatty, in my childhood, i always stayed away from all that crap to preserve my hot daddy physique into old age. but amurrican candy is just crap, and tastes like it too

We killed a fuckload of Congolese to do it, and even our cheap everyday chocolate is better than upmarket brands in the US or UK: Cote d'Or, Leonidas, Guylian, Galler, Dolfin.

There you go up to Neuhaus, Marcolini, Wittamer and you'd think we killed the whole continent. (We tried, we really did!)

Since 2014, Hershey has been committed to sourcing 100 percent responsibly grown palm oil that protects forests and peatlands and is free from exploitation.

Hershey buys a relatively small amount of palm oil which is used in select products. For example, Hershey’s Milk Chocolate bars do not include palm oil.

Palm oil does not contain trans-fat and it has unique texture and taste characteristics when used in coatings. In addition, palm fruit is a very efficient crop. It produces a much higher oil yield on less land than any equivalent vegetable oil crop such as soybean or coconut oil. Production and cultivation of palm oil also supports millions of smallholder farmers’ livelihoods globally.

The Hershey Company does not tolerate child labor and is taking steps to prevent, identify and remediate any instances of child labor found in our cocoa supply chain.

Child Labor is a symptom of poverty. Hershey, through its Cocoa For Good sustainable sourcing program, is tackling the root causes of poverty.

I wish really the FDA would enforce the same regulations that the U.K. and Europe have when it comes to food having natural and healthier ingredients. Of course food prices would go up.

Jaffa cakes don't even taste like food.

[quote] What always astonishes me about this debate (which has been done on DL more times than I'd like to count) is that the British people act like if they come here they will somehow be FORCED to eat a Hershey bar against their wills.

You could say the same thing about Americans and foreskins.

OP, out is apparent you have never tasted Dove chocolates. They superb.

They is, R107? Out so?

While both American and European chocolate are made with cacao beans, it's the amount of the cocoa solids in milk chocolate that differs. Chocolate in the U.S. is regulated by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration. The FDA mandates that American milk chocolate must contain at least 10 percent chocolate liquor, also known as cocoa solids, which is made from cacao beans. Semisweet and bittersweet American chocolate must contain at least 35 percent chocolate liquor.

Chocolates made by European countries must adhere to the standards set by the European Union. The EU requires milk chocolate to contain at least 20 percent dry cocoa solids and darker chocolates to contain a minimum of 35 percent dry cocoa solids.

Because of its higher cocoa content, European chocolate is generally softer than its American counterparts. While the FDA doesn't allow chocolate manufacturers to include non-cocoa-based vegetable fats in chocolate, the EU does allow for the addition of vegetable fats, making it smoother and softer.

American chocolate only contains cocoa butter, which is a bit harder than other vegetable fats. The temperatures across the U.S. are generally warmer than the countries in the EU, meaning that chocolate has to be more resistant to melting during transport. This is why American chocolate generally contains more solid fats and less chocolate liquor than European products, giving it more of a waxy texture.

Chocolate manufactured in the United States is generally sweeter than chocolate produced in European countries. This is mainly due to the fact that American chocolate contains less cocoa, which allows for the addition of more sugar or other carbohydrate sweeteners. European chocolate contains more cocoa and thus, less sugar. This is not true for some European brands marketed to the U.S., such as Cadbury, whose products differ in sugar content and other ingredients from products sold under the same name in Europe. American chocolate also contains sweeteners such as corn syrup, while European chocolate can only contain sugar. Corn syrup tends to have a sweeter flavor than sugar, which also accounts for the difference.

Dove choc is terrible. waxy taste. worse than Hershey's.

I disagree. Dove's dark chocolate is wonderful. I do agree that Hershey's is terrible. This makes me wonder about your taste buds.

British chocolate is far too sweet. It is so sweet it makes my teeth hurt. The Brits are known sugar freaks. If it's British chocolate, especially milk chocolate, it is far from being great.

I'v heard the Brits use ground up Pakistani babies in their chocolate.

Is there any company that sells high-quality European-style chocolate in the US, and gets around the law by labeling it as "Chocolate-flavored candy"?

I know there's no shortage of "chocolaty candy" and "chocolate-flavored candy", but all I've ever encountered is vile, disgusting shit that manages to be even WORSE than Hershey chocolate. Someone, somewhere HAS to be a rebel & sell high-quality chocolate that humors the requirements of American labeling laws without compromising on the chocolate itself.

I really miss Nestle's 1970s-era chocolate bars. They were never really popular enough for stores to put them up front by the cash register or in vending machines, but you could usually find them in the chocolate bar section at stores like 7-Eleven and Walgreens. They tasted distinctly different (and better) than Hershey. The only real downside I remember was that they seemed to melt a lot more easily in your hands than Hershey bars did... but the taste made them worth the mess. They disappeared sometime in the 1990s, then briefly reappeared in the early 2000s... but I'm pretty sure Nestle changed the formula, because the 2000s-era bars tasted NOTHING like the ones I remember eating as a child.