Chocolate after the best before date, is it fine?

[FlyingSoap]

Bought a bar of chocolate from a supermarket yesterday. Noticed it had white dust over the top of it. Checked date on the back of the packet and it was best before February this year!

Annoyed at the supermarket, but is it fine to finish eating it or is the white dust a sign it’s gone bad?

Does anyone know?

It’ll probably be fine to eat but won’t taste nice at all. Usually when they’ve turned white, the taste is gone. Can you take it back?

Btw even chocolate in date will sometimes have turned white. It isn’t a sign that it’s gone off, just that it doesn’t taste as good as it should.

Yeah. I will do. I’m worried it’s mould though?

They taste gross when they're like that but I've definitely eaten much older chocolate and not died so you're fine to eat it if you really want to. It will taste chalky though.

However I'd be tempted to take it back, shops really shouldn't be selling stuff months out of date even if it is fine to eat! Then you can get a nice fresh chocolate bar!

Looks more like bloom than mould. Safe but unappealing.

It will be fine. The white bloom is the cocoa fat.

That said, the shop shouldn't be selling out of date food and you could take it back for a replacement. But if you are desperate for chocolate, you can eat it and no harm will come to you. I've eaten chocolate past its best more times than I could say.

Not mould. It sometimes happens to chocolate and it losses its flavour as a result.

I’ve seen chocolate bars a lot worse than that which were in date!

https://www.livescience.com/why-chocolate-turns-white
Have look here, it’s safe to eat, but if I were you I’d probably take it back. I had some arrive like that from Ocado. It wasn’t out of date but it hadn’t been stored correctly. They sent me a voucher for the value of the chocolate.

Fairly sure chocolate doesn't go mouldy it's just the fat rising to the top it's called a fat or sugar bloom and is caused by being stored a fluctuating temperatures. It is not a health issues but might taste different as the fat isn't mixed in as well.

Just eat it, it’ll be fine!

It'll be fine. It's a best before date, not a use by date.

What? It’ll taste just as before.

It really really doesn’t! Even the link above explains it may taste different!