What has happened to chocolate?

[rosemole]

I haven’t eaten popular brands of chocolate for years because they all started adding palm oil to their ingredients, but I still missed the unique taste of Cadbury’s and Milky Bar.

Anyway this Christmas someone gave us a box of Quality Street and I decided to eat one - the green triangle - but it tasted absolutely rank!
And today I noticed a bar of Milky Bar doesn’t have palm oil (maybe changed) so I thought I’d treat myself to memory lane. It’s disgusting. Not that yummy moreish flavour of years ago. Or have my taste buds changed?

YABU - it still tastes the same
YANBU - chocolate is not what it used to be and is full of cheap ingredients

My in laws had a tin of Quality Street and it was disgusting! Definitely less cocoa content and more oils and fats.

Worth paying a premium for good chocolate nowadays!

Climate change = terrible harvests = extremely expensive cocoa. Companies think/know consumers won't pay the higher (2-3x higher) prices so put crap in instead. Good chocolate is a luxury food now 😔

Ingredients are becoming more expensive so the big companies are filling the products with crap to keep the prices low. Toffee Crisp bars are not even allowed to be called chocolate anymore because there isn’t enough ingredients in them. I started a thread about it

We had M&S Big Mix for Christmas and Quality Street - there was no comparison Big Mix were lovely.

But the kind of proper chocolate we used to know is hard to come by and increasingly expensive

I was just saying to my husband how rank quality street chocs were 🤐

Completely agree, OP! I've stopped eating most chocolate, Kitkat Chunky are just not worth it.
I'm yearning for some nice chocolate/chocolates.
@EineReiseDurchDieZeit you've inspired me to get some!
Anyone with other recommendations, I'd be so grateful...

My favourite chocolate are Lindt bars or Toblerone. Ritter is good too. But I long for that old Cadbury’s taste of my childhood.

Oh, and while we're on it; I used to love Twiglets, but they're not worth it either!

Husband bought some shortbread, and sprinkles extra caster sugar on top!

And I add extra salt to salted peanuts!

My BP is, so far, OK...

@OneearringlostI’ll feel responsible now if you don’t rate them!

I was disappointed with the M & S Big Mix. I think I preferred the Quality Street.

Somone gave us a tin of QS. Family of four and they are unfinished. Bloody horrible.

I’d honestly rather pay £15 for a TIN of Quality Street, with SHINY wrappers and CHOCOLATELY chocolate, than pay less for a weird tub with peculiar dull wrappers round gritty-tasting faux chocolate. And, as per another thread, Questions need to be asked in Parliament about the aberration which is the new Purple One.

Cadburys closed their factory in our town when they sold out to Kraft and moved production overseas.

Lots of friends lost their jobs and the age old recipes were changed.

It's palm oil. More than anything else just palm oil allowing companies to make greater profit. It has nothing to do with climate change or cocoa shortage or anything else, Lidl, Aldi and even Tesco own brand have plenty of cheap oil free chocolate that tastes and feels like chocolate.

I had a Kit-Kat for the first time in years recently and it was just not a Kit-Kat. Not only did it taste horrible but it didn't have the snappy fingers that made it a Kit-Kat.

After buying some disappointing, but very expensive, chocolates from an independent chocolate shop last year, I vowed to start making my own ones. Provided you don't go to the trouble of tempering the chocolate, but cover them in cocoa powder or toasted coconut or chopped nuts instead, it is really easy and so much nicer. I've been making boozy truffles that would blow your socks off and which taste really fresh and flavoursome. Very little effort and so worth it.

They are determined to keep selling the Quality Street tins at a stupidly low price. So shrinkfkation and worse recipes it is. If the price had kept up with inflation they'd be way more expensive. But they'd taste far better.

Thing is cheap chocolate was always cheap and low in cocoa. But it's got silly recently! I miss the old taste.

Where do you start with that @EsmaCannonball I wouldn’t know where to begin!

They're messing with all sorts. I had a gingerbread latte this year from one of the big chains - I'm sensitive to artificial sweeteners and I immediately realised they have switched to sugar-free syrup. It was disgusting.

Tony's chocolate is best. Or Neuhaus if you want to be fancy.

I used to love the green triangle one but then about 10 years ago,it changed and tasted disgusting. My DD thinks the same,so not just me!

QS green triangles have been revolting for years. At least 5, probably more. I never buy them anymore.

I was going to mention Toblerone, still tastes nice. Agree, most of the others are pretty rank now.

Nah, Tony's is revolting too!

Ooh are the ones in the tin different? I saw the big tins at Costco but didn't but them as I thought it was just full of the nasty ones. We have 2 plastic tubs given to the kids that have remained unopened.
The 'chocolate flavour candy bar' my mum bought them has been hidden 🤢

i’d forgotten they still do the tins - but the chocolate and wrappers are still awful.

Tony’s chocolate is vile. It tastes like Kinnerton - that false cheap chocolate (not sure if it still exists).

Cadburys used to be the envy of the world (my US flatmate always said, “Make sure you bring back plenty of Canterburys (sic)”) but now it tastes like that grim Hersheys stuff.

Agreed