All Your Questions About Aldi's Chocolate, Answered

We may receive a commission on purchases made from links.

Aldi is a discount grocery store best known for primarily stocking its own private label brands (with some being backed by major brands), and the national name brands it does have for sale are limited. This flips the standard supermarket sales model on its head. But, by doing this, Aldi manages to keep its products high quality while still offering them at good price points. Some of the chain's most popular products are the chocolate bars. While many people adore them, few know the full story behind them. For instance, who makes them? Are they vegan or gluten free? What makes them so good anyway?

It's natural to have questions — especially when products don't meet your typical status quo. After all, Aldi chocolates are mostly private label brands that many people haven't heard of unless they frequently shop at the chain. Thankfully, you've come to the right place.

Today, we'll take a deep dive into the topic and answer all your most pressing questions. By the end of the article, you'll walk away as a casual expert on the topic.

Aldi's chocolate is made by Moser Roth, Schogetten, and Choceur. Moser Roth is a German chocolate brand that produces chocolate for Aldi — however, you can also order its chocolates online at Amazon. Its range of products include chocolate bars in dark, milk, and white varieties. 

Schogetten is a German chocolate brand that was founded in 1962. In 2022, it not only celebrated its 60th birthday, but it also released its first vegan line to meet customer demands and promote sustainability. The company produces a few chocolate bars in varying flavors. 

Choceur is a certified Fairtrade Belgian chocolate brand that brought its gourmet products to America in 2012. The company takes pride in using sustainably harvested cocoa beans, allowing consumers to indulge mindfully in their decadent products. Unlike the other two companies, its chocolate options go beyond bars and also include peanut butter cups, chocolate covered fruits, and even toffees. 

Aldi sells a wide range of chocolate types, with some of the most common bars or candies being dark chocolate and milk chocolate. Yet even among these two popular types, there is a wide variation in what may be offered. Moser Roth offers a wide variety of bars, including Dark Sea Salt, Toffee Crunch, and Dark Raspberry Almond. Schogetten produces chocolate bar and candy flavors like Latte Macchiato, Dark Chocolate with Cocoa and Hazelnuts, Praline Noisettes, Alpine Milk Chocolate with Hazelnuts, Trilogia Erdbeer, and Trilogia Noisettes. Choceur has chocolate bars in flavors like Strawberry Yogurt, Crunchy Caramel Sea Salt, and Dark Chocolate with Almonds. 

But, Aldi chocolate brands didn't stop there. You'll also likely find a few variations of white chocolates, chocolate coated fruits, toffee crunch bars, mint flavored chocolate bars, and chocolates with varying nuts, among others. There are even truffles in milk, dark, and white chocolate varieties. 

Many of Aldi's private label products are award-winning, proving that the company's dedication to quality goes beyond its chocolates. But, the chocolate's quality specifically can be boiled down to one thing: All of Aldi's chocolates are sourced from Europe. And, European chocolates are often better than American ones due to several key differences.

The primary difference is the balance between sugar and cocoa. If you've ever eaten a milk chocolate bar and a dark chocolate bar in a single sitting, you'll know the difference in taste and texture between the two is significant — and this is a perfect example of how American and European chocolates are different. American chocolates tend to learn more towards sugar, which dilutes the cocoa content providing the chocolate flavoring; whereas European chocolates tend to embrace a higher cocoa content, giving it a richer, more decadent flavor profile.

There are other ways European chocolates tend to be different. For example, the particle sizes of European options tend to be smaller, resulting in a smoother texture. Plus, these products lack ingredients used in American chocolates to produce a slight tangy flavor – therefore, the sweet and bitter flavors of the chocolate are allowed to shine through. Butyric acid is the primary ingredient producing that tangy flavor, and in American chocolates, it's used to reduce milk spoilage risks. Interestingly, this spoilage prevention makes American chocolate taste odd to the rest of the world.

Vegan diets don't allow the consumption of animal byproducts like milk, butter, cream, or even tallow, which may be present in some chocolates. Unfortunately, Aldi does not sell truly vegan chocolates as even its dark chocolate options contain milkfat or butterfat. Although the company doesn't have vegan options at this time, it doesn't mean it won't carry them in the future. 

With that being said, there are vegetarian chocolates available at Aldi. The primary difference between these two restrictive diets is that vegetarians do consume animal products, although they don't eat meat. Since butterfat and milkfat aren't issues for this diet, most Aldi chocolates are suitable. A few examples of vegetarian-friendly chocolate options include Choceur Dark Chocolate Espresso Beans, Schogetten Alpine Milk Chocolate with Hazelnuts, and Moser Roth Dark Sea Salt. 

Remember that products can change their formulas at any time. So, if you follow a restrictive diet like veganism or vegetarianism, it's important to always read the packaging before each purchase — yes, even if you've purchased it many times before.

What is gluten free? It means a product doesn't contain wheat, rye, or barley, and isn't potentially cross-contaminated with those either. People who have Celiac disease, gluten intolerance, or a wheat allergy have to follow a strict gluten free diet. Other people may follow this restrictive diet for personal preference. Fortunately, some chocolates from Aldi are gluten free. 

A few examples of Aldi chocolate that don't list any forms of gluten on the labeling include: the Choceur Dark Chocolate Bar with Roasted Hazelnuts, Schogetten Alpine Milk Chocolate Bar, and Moser Roth Creamy Milk Chocolate Bar. However, these bars have warning labels that they could have cross-contamination with wheat products, so they aren't suitable for those who are extra sensitive to these proteins. Look for the certified gluten-free seal and read the ingredients list — at the bottom of the ingredients list there should be allergen warnings in bold. These are the same precautions you should take if you have other major food allergies, too, including eggs, milk, tree nuts, peanuts, coconut, soy, sesame, and others.

Aldi began selling some name brand chocolates in response to customer feedback and an inability to secure a private store brand variation of similar varieties. However, more than 90% of its products across all categories are Aldi brands. Besides the chocolate bars and candies available from the three primary brands discussed above, non-bar chocolate treats are also available from Aldi's Simply Nature, Baker's Corner, and Specially Selected. 

But which name brand chocolates does Aldi carry? Well, like all products at the chain, this can vary significantly from one location to the next (or even from one day to the next within the same location). But, a few brands you can find include Snickers, M&M's, Kinder Joy, Hershey's (bars, not its well-ranked Kisses), Reese's, and KitKat. However, at our local Aldi, only one or two options were available from each national brand rather than the wide selection you'd expect at other grocery stores.

As more people become environmentally and socially conscious, they become more aware of the dangerous impacts of certain cocoa harvesting practices. For example, some cocoa farms utilize child labor to harvest their beans, which is unethical and harmful to the children. Furthermore, areas where cocoa is farmed are well-known to battle with the effects of poverty and deforestation as a result of unethical harvesting practices. 

Fortunately, most of Aldi's chocolate is ethically sourced, making it an excellent option for environmentally-conscious consumers. In fact, 99% of Aldi label chocolates come from certified sources — and the company has the lofty goal of getting that number to an incredible 100%. According to Aldi, it's working to do this by staying true to its three pillars: "responsible sourcing, certified products, and strong partnerships." Those strong partnerships include global stakeholders like Tony's Open Chain, Forum Nachhaltiger Kakao, Retailer Cocoa Collaboration, and the Swiss Platform for Sustainable Cocoa.

Determining what the best and worst chocolates at Aldi are is often a matter of personal preference. One of our writers did an ultimate ranking of Aldi chocolates and noted that the Moser Roth Dark 85% Cocoa Chocolate Bar is too "earthy" and "tasted more like 100% cocoa with no reprieve." The Moser Roth Dark Chili Chocolate Bar is said to be unbalanced, with an uneven distribution of heat and sweet that causes an overwhelming sweetness on one end, with a nearly unbearable amount of heat at the other end. 

She also noted that the Choceur Crunchy Caramel Sea Salt is the best chocolate bar you can find at Aldi, and she went so far as to say it was "life-changing." Her greatest praises were that the chocolate bar felt very balanced, allowing each of the unique flavor profiles to be represented and then merged. The Choceur Salted Pretzel Pieces has also received praise, with consumers stating it was a "thoughtful balance of flavors and textures."