Ever wondered if chocolate goes off? Here’s all you need to know about eating chocolate after its best before date…

In almost every house, there’s at least one old bar of chocolate languishing in the cupboard. Maybe it’s been left unopened for a year and you’re afraid to check, or you’re starting to see tiny spots of white on it, and you haven’t thrown it away because who would want to waste good chocolate? But if the chocolate is already past its best before date, you might worry whether it’s good to eat, or even whether it’s safe.

We’re here to put those worries to rest. Hint: it’s probably good to eat, but it depends on a few different things. Here’s how you can know…

Is it safe to eat chocolate after its best before date?

There’s a key difference between ‘best before’ and ‘use by’. ‘Best before’ refers to the window of time where the product will be at its tastiest and freshest, whereas ‘use by’ is all about the date at which the food will become unsafe to eat. It’s extremely important to not eat food that’s past its use-by date, even if it doesn’t smell or look bad. After that point, the food will spoil more quickly and the risk of food poisoning will increase. Often, this relates to meat or dairy products.

Food that’s past its best before date, on the other hand, is still safe to eat. It might not taste as good as the manufacturers intended, but luckily you won’t be risking an illness by eating it. This difference is a good thing to keep in mind if you want to reduce food waste. Food that’s past its best before doesn’t have to be destined for the bin.

Knowing this, we can see that chocolate is safe to eat after its best before date — no need to write off your out of date chocolate just yet!

Can chocolate go off?

Unlike foods such as fruit or meat, chocolate won’t grow mould or other nasty growths. The lack of water in the recipe and long shelf life of cacao butter makes it a subpar place for bacteria to survive, meaning you won’t get any cheeky microorganisms coming along to steal your well-earnt chocolate. It’s for this reason that chocolate doesn’t tend to have a use by date.

Although the chocolate itself won’t go off, it’s worth looking at the rest of the ingredients in it. Plain, dark chocolate, like our 70% Dark Chocolate Batons, will be good to go for a while. However, fresher ingredients like cream, fruit, or nuts can still go off.

What does it mean when chocolate blooms?

What, then, are the strange white spots you might have seen creeping across old chocolate? You may have finally peeled open the chocolate coins from Christmas two years ago only to find that the chocolate has ‘gone off’. The truth is, while chocolate doesn’t go off too quickly at all, its appearance can change a little bit due to factors like the environment and temperature it’s kept in.

Sugar blooms or fat blooms come about when the sugar or fat in the chocolate crystallises on the surface. These won’t affect the taste of the chocolate, but they do affect the appearance and texture. Although they might be unsightly, these blooms don’t mean the chocolate is unsafe to eat. And if you’d still rather not eat it like that, melting the chocolate will mix the ingredients together again.

How long does chocolate last after the best before date?

How long chocolate lasts after the best before date depends on the type of chocolate and its ingredients. The higher the cacao percentage of the chocolate, the longer it tends to last, as it contains less (or no) milk and other perishable ingredients. Dark chocolate, with its higher cacao content, can be good to eat for as long as three years past the best before. Due to their high milk contents, milk and white chocolates might not last as long as dark, but their longevity is still nothing to sniff at — you can expect to get another 8 months or so out of it.

Other additions like fruit, cream, caramel, and nuts won’t last as long as chocolate. Even if the rest of the chocolate is fine, you should look at all the ingredients before judging.

Why does chocolate have a best before date?

If there’s no need for a use by date, why does chocolate have a best before date? It’s all to do with quality. As chocolate makers and lovers of chocolate, we want to ensure you can enjoy our chocolate at the highest quality possible, so we give you the best before date as a guideline. After that date is passed, the chocolate will be edible (and still delicious!), but may not match the impeccable taste of our fresher chocolate.

The best before date of our chocolates can be a bit earlier than those of some other brands because we use the freshest ingredients we can, and never add anything artificial, ever. (Luckily, we tend to find that people don’t leave chocolates hanging around uneaten for too long!)

How to store chocolate

If you want to keep your chocolate fresh for as long as possible, it’s important to store it correctly. Keeping it at a consistent temperature in a cupboard or pantry away from direct sunlight and properly wrapped in foil will help keep your chocolate tasting great past its best before. Contrary to common sense, the fridge isn’t the best place for your chocolate, because the extreme temperature changes can cause the sugar and fat blooms we mentioned earlier.

Additionally, it’s best to avoid storing chocolate alongside food with a strong smell, as cacao butter has a tendency to absorb odours. Mint chocolate tastes divine, but garlic chocolate? You probably won’t see it gracing our shelves any time soon.

Got any chocolate in the cupboard or fridge you’ve been putting off eating? Try taking it out, peeling off a bit of wrapper, and seeing how it looks.