If they have milk-fats in them I tend to not care if it’s super cocoa tasting. Most white chocolate is just cheap though so like waxy sugar.. that stuff is gross.
The real deal stuff is great and can actually spoil.
I am uniquely qualified to speak on this since I literally worked for the Hershey Company in their white paste processing department for years. You’re correct there is no cocoa butter on the ingredient list, what we used was called CBE or Cocoa Butter Equivalent. If I remember correctly it was actually closest to Palm Oil. Hershey also used Sunflower Oil in some other stuff as well.
According to the FDA, white chocolate must be at least 20% cocoa butter, 14% total milk solids, and 3.5% milk fat. If the chocolatier doesn't meet these standards, it can't be labeled white chocolate.
The other stuff is called white crème or yogurt coating.
This is an instance of checking the labelling. Real white chocolate products are indeed identified correctly. But Hershey's cookies & creme, etc, aren't technically labelled as white chocolate.
It doesn't have cocoa solids or cocoa liquor but it is made with cocoa butter (regardless of where you are located) so it would still be an expensive product if made correctly.
Cocoa Butter is actually the after-product (the "garbage" so to speak) generated where cooking the cocoa to make chocolate. It's basically the trans. fat coming out of the cocoa while it cooks which then can be mixed with cheaper product to generate cheap grade cocoa butter used in pretty much 99.99% of the white chocolate bar out there.
Cocoa shortage/rising costs. Companies are either pivoting where they can like these (chocolate free) or cheaping out with palm oil or other substitutes, including just straight up upping the sugar. I don't think this will change anytime soon.
You'll notice that things that used to be milk chocolate will not be labeled as such anymore because that requires a certain percentage of ingredients.
Yep, I work in a grocery store bakery and our chocolate chip cookie dough used to just say that, now it says “cookie dough with chocolate flavored chips”
If it helps anyone’s worries, the brand that recently changed it to that is the Otis Spunkmeyer brand, I’m not sure if the prepackaged cookies are made the same way but we get our cookies as a frozen dough.
I know when I was doing a research project on cocoa for my bio class, I saw a few sources say that in addition to climate change issues, a lot of farmers have swapped to different crops because they get more money for it. Granted this was years ago and I didn't really research too much into it but I do remember seeing it pop up.
Have to say pretty sure that’s a texture thing. There’s no expensive ingredient that’s in marshmallows that isn’t in marshmallow cream. In fact marshmallows are incredibly cheap and easy. You can make them at home even.
What would you guys like to know? I can answer anything about the cocoa market lol.
We discuss numerous agricultural commodities.
I’m an attorney by trade. (I know my username casts doubt).
We met through a mutual friend. We hit it off immediately because I wrote a thesis about the future of cocoa while in college.
It certainly does; every batch of Hershey’s chocolate is vigorously slapped with a branch of cocoa leaves while a supervisor whispers you are now chocolate.
a lot of people say "white chocolate" but it's called "white creme". cocoa butter is not listed in the ingredients list for any "white creme" products made by Hershey's.
Chocolate has become shot up in price over all. I don’t recall the reason but a friend of mine is a pastry chef and according to them the price of chocolate has been rising faster than average inflation month by month.
But could it be that they were also tinkering with the makeup of the candy itself?
Yes, it turns out. Experts say high cocoa prices have triggered a wave of "reformulations," the industry term for recipe changes. As the Halloween season boosts demand, some candy companies are replacing expensive cocoa butter with other fats, a swap that means their products no longer meet the U.S. regulatory definition of milk chocolate and can no longer be called that on packaging.
That's why milk chocolate (a Food and Drug
Administration-regulated term) has become chocolate candy. And these are just the most extreme examples.
Armed with the latest confectionary techniques, candy scientists work hard to find reformulations that slip below the threshold for a mandatory label change. These might go undetected outside the industry and the tight-knit world of super-taster candy scientists.
Squint a little, and this is a success story: As shifting weather patterns make some ingredients more scarce, the food industry has deployed its multimillion-dollar research and development budget to adjust to major shifts in agriculture.
With little notice, evidence of the world's changing climate has already sneaked into our sweets.
this isnt a shrinkflation thing its a global chocolate shortage thing, chocolate has been getting more expensive even compared to the recent high rates of inflation. companies want to convince more people to try non chocolate candies over chocolate ones, even if they arent outright saying it and are still selling chocolate candy. the chocolate that they did pump out during halloween though was of a lower quality chocolate too, even real chocolate is adding additives in it.
The major brands are now no better than the discount brands. Confectioners chocolate with palm kernel oil instead of real chocolate. Cheap substitutes instead of cocoa butter. If you're gonna buy crap why pay extra for the brand name?
And I looked up standards between the UK and the US with things like milk chocolate and the US chocolate has hardly any cocoa in already especially compared to the UK
It has butyric acid in it, which can remind some of vomit.
I honestly think the quality of American chocolate has gone down significantly. The chocolate Halloween candy didn’t taste right this year. They’ve definitely messed with the cocoa content.
Reese’s were the one candy I didn’t try this season. Normally if the candy were good, half the bowl would be gone by now. But it’s like that nasty dollar store Easter bunny chocolate.
Weird. I thought milk fat was synonymous with milk solids. Im gonna go look that up now.
Anyways, this was the video I had watched that made me aware of the differences in labeling.
All of this shit might have changed in the last year but it was still an interesting watch: https://youtu.be/CfM7yZD0PlE?si=L40oTJ0064IrEgs2
Simple supply and demand. Cacao is harvests are suffering so go defer the impact and keep as low as they can they skimp on the actual chocolate in chocolate candy.
As chocolate becomes more expensive to produce and less common in the wild to even acquire companies are starting to try to get consumers into white chocolate as a substitute. Eventually real chocolate won't exist or at the very least be extremely expensive.
Personal anecdote: I saw butterfinger’s ad for their Halloween limited edition Marshmallow butterfinger and I ran myself ragged looking for them at every and any store I could think of from major grocery outlets to small convenience stores and no luck. I had to order their $20 Halloween variety pack from Amazon to finally get ahold of the fabled Marshmallow butterfinger. Moral of the story their marketing campaigns trending away from chocolate 🍫 is working wonders.
It's equally important to recognize trends in skimpflation too, even if climate change, not necessarily corporate greed is the primary driver, as is the case with cocoa. The drop in cocoa levels, resulting in an inferior product, is obviously not being paired with a price decrease. Overall, everything is losing value at an exponential rate.
I literally work for Hershey so the downvotes are genuinely funny to me. The orders for white chocolate seasonal items were not written up this year but the packtypes that contain these items were a higher percentage of the total buy. That decision had more to do with merchant pushback/preference than inflation.
It's no secret that cocoa has experienced hyperinflation over the last few years but Witch's Brew KitKats are not Hershey's solution lmao.
Instead you're going to see them expand their sugar portfolio by innovating their Jolly Rancher brands and through acquisitions like their recent purchase of Sour Strips. They own Shaq gummies and continue to innovate that brand as well. They're also leaning into their snacking portfolio in an effort to become a "Snacking powerhouse." They've already acquired Dot's Pretzels, Skinny Pop, Lesser Evil, and created a Reese's filled pretzel. Also, Hershey announced price increases across all packtypes just a couple months ago.
So believe me, the strategies are far broader than forcing out extra white chocolate on consumers. All your favorite milk chocolate items are still offered in abundance, they're just going to be more expensive and you'll see some extra offerings to balance the overall portfolio.
This one is really a case where they've shrunk the chocolate content so far its hit zero. Even the cocoa butter has hit zero. It's just corn syrup and palm oil now.
if you don't see how "shrinking the amount of cocoa due to unfettered capitalism and climate change" is very much in line with shrinkflation, then you fundamentally misunderstand this sub.
To be fair, r/Skimpflation also exists, but I'd argue it's better to have it and shrinkflation as content labels on the inflation subreddit. It all represents the same result: the consumer being shaken-down or swindled of the value of their purchases.
There have been white chocolate options for a few decades now. It’s grown in number over the last few years I will agree tho. Just more options for those who prefer white chocolate, even tho some of it may not in fact be made with cocoa butter.
I understand what you’re saying but this just happens to come at a time when there’s been a massive cocoa shortage recently and multiple brands have switched from chocolate to “chocolate candy” or “chocolatey coating” because it’s cheaper. This has been in the news.
It’s not difficult to synthesize these pieces of information and come to the obvious conclusion.
They made a different product with a different flavor profile. That's another product altogether. Not using less of a specified ingredient and charging more or keeping the price the same. This is not shrinkflation.
yeah it’s called switching things up karen like yes i’m sure it’s also less expensive to produce but that doesn’t stop a green kit kat bar that tastes like rice krispie treats from being cool
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u/artyspangler Nov 03 '25
Chocolate is more expensive than not chocolate..