You probably didn’t even notice, but over the past few years, the labels on popular candies like Almond Joy, Mr. Goodbar, and Rolo quietly dropped a key phrase: ‘milk chocolate.’
These changes were subtle, almost imperceptible. For instance, Mr. Goodbar’s wrapper switched from ‘milk chocolate with peanuts’ to simply ‘chocolate candy with peanuts.’ Almond Joy is now a ‘coconut and almond chocolate candy bar,’ and Rolos describe themselves as ‘rich chocolate candy’ instead of their former ‘milk chocolate’ title.
My own journey into this sweet mystery began earlier this year after a rather disappointing chocolate bar experience. It wasn’t spoiled, but it simply didn’t taste right. As a climate reporter, I’d been following news of global warming causing severe droughts in West Africa, which in turn sent cocoa prices soaring. I knew candy companies were already hiking prices and shrinking portions, but I wondered if something deeper was at play.
Could they actually be altering the very ingredients of our favorite treats?
The answer, it turns out, is a resounding ‘yes.’ Industry experts confirm a surge in ‘reformulations’ – the official term for recipe alterations – driven by skyrocketing cocoa costs. Especially as Halloween approaches and demand for candy peaks, companies are replacing costly cocoa butter with alternative fats. This seemingly minor ingredient swap means many products no longer qualify under the strict U.S. regulatory definition of ‘milk chocolate,’ necessitating the label changes we’re now seeing.
So, your ‘milk chocolate’ is now ‘chocolate candy’ for a good reason – it’s an FDA-regulated distinction. But these are just the most obvious adjustments. Behind the scenes, candy scientists are employing advanced confectionery techniques to tweak recipes just enough to avoid mandatory label changes. These subtle reformulations often go unnoticed by the average consumer, known only to those within the industry and a select few ‘super-taster’ candy experts.
From a certain perspective, this is an impressive adaptation. As climate change makes some agricultural ingredients increasingly rare, the food industry is pouring millions into research and development to keep our favorite treats on the shelves. And without us even realizing it, the subtle impacts of a warming planet have already made their way into our sweets.
In recent years, longer droughts, extreme heat and irregular rainfall patterns have suppressed cocoa yields in West Africa, the crop’s primary growing region. An infection carried by mealybugs has also spread rapidly. Financial speculators, the threat of tariffs, labor issues and other geopolitical factors have compounded the problems.
A study by the nonprofit Climate Central in February revealed that climate change has added an astonishing six weeks of extreme heat per year to most West African cocoa regions over the last decade, significantly hindering crop growth.
This perfect storm of factors has sent cocoa prices skyrocketing, peaking at over $10,000 per ton late last year—a staggering four-fold increase since 2022, as reported by the Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis.
Judy Ganes, a seasoned food industry consultant, explains the predicament: ‘When climate change combines with existing structural problems and diseases, prices surge. Manufacturers are reluctant to pass these increases directly to consumers, fearing a drop in sales. So, their options are either to hope consumers switch to other products or to reformulate their own.’
While food industry leaders are transparent about reducing cocoa ingredients to cut costs, they become notably more evasive when pressed for details on specific recipe changes in their own brands.
During a February earnings call, Hershey’s CFO, Steve Voskuil, acknowledged considering and testing reformulations, stating, ‘in some parts of our portfolio, over time we’ve made some changes,’ while insisting there has been ‘no consumer impact whatsoever.’
Similarly, Nestlé informed investors that recipe reformulations had saved them over $500 million, presenting this alongside a slide illustrating soaring cocoa and coffee prices. When I sought further clarification, a Nestlé spokesperson claimed that candy contributed only a minor part to these savings, with the bulk coming from ‘addressing recipe complexity’ and ‘harmonizing recipes’ across various brands.
So, how can discerning candy lovers detect these hidden changes? I embarked on my own investigation, meticulously comparing current labels of Mr. Goodbar, Rolo caramels, and Almond Joy against historical ingredient lists. My sources included the crowdsourced Open Food Facts database, a U.S. Department of Agriculture ingredient database, and detailed records from Richard Hartel, a University of Wisconsin-Madison food science professor who annually logs the ingredients of popular chocolate bars for his classes.
This research also led to numerous trips to the grocery store, where I spent an embarrassingly long time scrutinizing the tiny print on Halloween candy bags.
My findings from these databases indicate that both Rolo and Mr. Goodbar have undergone changes since 2023, while Almond Joy’s recipe appears to have been altered between 2020 and 2022. The Hershey Company, manufacturers of these candies, chose not to comment. Interestingly, Mr. Goodbar briefly lost its ‘milk chocolate’ status around 2008 before seemingly reverting.
However, relying solely on labels offers only a partial picture to the curious consumer. Food scientists openly admit their expertise lies in subtly modifying recipes to escape detection by the general public.
Michelle Frame, a renowned expert and founder of candy development firm Victus Ars—and notably, the innovator behind flavored Peeps, earning her a spot in the Candy Hall of Fame—has observed these shifts firsthand.
Even outside her lab, Ms. Frame has spotted these changes affecting her everyday life. She noted a Snickers bar’s milk chocolate coating seemed thinner than she remembered, and she stopped buying a particular store-bought chocolate chip cookie after realizing its signature large chocolate chips had been swapped for an inferior substitute. (A Mars spokeswoman, however, stated that Snickers coatings haven’t changed since a minor reduction in 2019.)
According to Ms. Frame, a common strategy to mitigate high cocoa costs is to substitute traditional chocolate coating with a ‘compound coating’—a blend of vegetable fats instead of pricier cocoa butter. While candies like Butterfinger and Baby Ruth have long utilized compound coatings, others, such as Almond Joy, have adopted this change more recently.
Reformulating candies without coatings presents a more complex challenge. Manufacturers are now exploring highly realistic substitutes for cocoa butter. Dr. Hartel describes this as ‘a food scientist’s delight’ due to the intricate task of perfectly mimicking cocoa butter’s unique texture and melt-in-your-mouth feel. This quest has also become a significant area of business investment.
He added that one clear giveaway for these substitutions is the appearance of the word ‘chocolatey’ on packaging.
Cargill, a major ingredient supplier, has seen a spike in demand for chocolate alternatives, according to John Satumba, their director of global edible oil solutions R&D. Cargill has poured $35 million into a Netherlands facility to produce coatings and fillings with reduced cocoa and is building a new plant in Ohio dedicated to chocolate substitutes.
Worldwide, Cargill’s investment in ‘cocoa butter equivalent capabilities’ totals $70 million.
Other strategies involve replacing cocoa with more readily available ingredients such as sugar or various chunky add-ins. Andrew Moriarty, senior cocoa analyst at Expana, notes that this has reversed a decade-long trend where companies were reducing sugar in response to consumer demand. Now, sugar content is quietly increasing again as it fills the void left by diminishing cocoa.
Elsewhere, a company might thin out a milk chocolate coating and subtly layer a chocolate compound underneath. Cookie manufacturers, Ms. Frame explains, might reduce the size or quantity of chocolate chips, or blend ‘real’ chocolate chips with compound ones.
While consumers rarely detect these clever tricks, industry insiders have a different perspective.
Eric Schmoyer, technical innovations director at IRCA Group, a chocolate manufacturer, shares a revealing anecdote: ‘We all know each other and we run around behind the scenes and we’re like, can you believe this stuff?’
Although cocoa prices have slightly receded from their peak last winter, analysts anticipate that the supply shortage is a long-term problem, exacerbated by a warming planet. Global demand for chocolate continues to rise, yet increasing production is a slow process. Climate change will further strain crops with hotter temperatures and unpredictable rainfall, while new cocoa plantings face restrictions due to anti-deforestation regulations, according to Mr. Moriarty.
Looking ahead, Dr. Hartel foresees a further divergence in the chocolate market. Premium chocolates will likely maintain their traditional ingredients, with consumers paying increasingly higher prices. Meanwhile, companies producing lower-cost chocolates will intensify their efforts to keep products affordable through ongoing reformulations, smaller package sizes, or by introducing new products with reduced cocoa content.
This Halloween season provides a clear example of this latter strategy: a Hershey’s assortment currently features light-green Kit Kats and Cookies ‘n’ Creme Fangs, neither of which contains *any* actual chocolate.
As for my disappointing chocolate bar that started this whole investigation? Despite my extensive label comparisons, I found no obvious changes over five years. Yet, candy scientists informed me that many other factors could have been altered: the company might have sourced beans from a new region, opted for lower-quality beans, or even switched manufacturers entirely.
While we’ve seen numerous alarming headlines about how a warming world could drastically reshape our food system—potentially making staple crops less nutritious, and leading to severe shortages and widespread hunger—there are also more subtle, insidious changes already present on our plates. And, it seems, concealing these shifts has become both feasible and financially rewarding.
In essence, the future of our food might just taste like that subpar chocolate bar: slightly off, in a way that’s hard to pinpoint, whether due to different beans, less cocoa butter, or increased sugar.
Or, perhaps, it was simply stale. We may never truly know.