Most chocolate isn't anywhere near what you would consider to be dark chocolate. Hershey's Special Dark chocolate bars are something like 45% cocoa solids wher

Most chocolate isn't anywhere near what you would consider to be dark chocolate. Hershey's Special Dark chocolate bars are something like 45% cocoa solids where as real dark chocolate is usually north of 70%. To say that a lot of people don't like dark chocolate is very open to interpretation and I wouldn't at all be surprised if candy makers relied on that fact to support their dilution of products. Manufactures have been altering their chocolate formulas for decades to reduce costs. Hershey once removed cocoa butter from a number of products, replacing it with oils, which under governing laws required that they re-brand the products from "milk chocolate" to "chocolate candy". Companies even have different formulations base on the country and their general preferences. Nutella sold in the USA is very different in taste and texture from Nutella sold in Italy. Candy sold in the UK cannot have artificial anything so all products there are very different from the USA as well. A lot of the oils used to replace cocoa butter and milk fats have a putrid bile like flavor and so manufacturers bump up the sugar content to compensate which radically changes the flavor profile. These changes have been introduced to markets gradually over time so the market grows accustom to the changes. That's why you hear about people from Europe describing US chocolate as rancid. *typo