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Brookside Chocolate is a delicious chocolate that is perfect for any occasion. Whether you are looking for a gift for someone special, or just want to treat yourself, Brookside Chocolate is the perfect choice. With its rich flavor and smooth texture, Brookside Chocolate is sure to satisfy your sweet tooth. But, are Brookside Chocolates vegan?
No flavors of Brookside chocolates are vegan because they contain milk ingredients. Some flavors also contain Confectioner’s Glaze and Honey, these ingredients are not vegan-friendly.
Below is a table showing Brookside Chocolate flavors and its vegan status.
| Flavor | Vegan Status |
| BROOKSIDE Dark Chocolate Acai and Blueberry Flavour | No, contains Milk & Confectioner’s Glaze. |
| BROOKSIDE Dark Chocolate Pomegranate Flavour | No, contains Milk & Confectioner’s Glaze. |
| BROOKSIDE Dark Chocolate with Goji Raspberry Flavor | No, contains Milk & Confectioner’s Glaze. |
| BROOKSIDE Whole Almonds in Dark Chocolate | No, contains Milk & Confectioner’s Glaze. |
| BROOKSIDE Simply Thin Milk Chocolate Almonds | No, contains Milk. |
| BROOKSIDE Simply Thin Dark Chocolate Almonds | No, contains Milk. |
| Brookside Dark Chocolate Crunchy Clusters | No, contains Milk & Honey. |
Brookside Chocolate Ingredients
Below is a list of ingredients from all the flavors that I could find.
- Acai Puree Concentrate
- Alkalized Cocoa Powder
- Almonds (Roasted In Sunflower And / Or Canola Oil)
- Apple Juice Concentrate
- Apple Syrup
- Ascorbic Acid (Vitamin C)
- Brown Sugar
- Baking Soda
- Blueberry Juice Concentrate
- Butter Fat
- Cane Sugar
- Canola Oil
- Chocolate
- Citric Acid
- Cocoa Butter
- Cocoa Powder
- Cocoa Processed With Alkali
- Confectioner’s Glaze
- Corn Syrup
- Cranberry Juice Concentrate
- Dark Chocolate
- Deionized Apple Juice Concentrate
- Fruit Juice from Concentrate
- Goji Berry Juice Concentrate
- Lecithin (Soy)
- Lemon Juice Concentrate
- Malic Acid
- Maltodextrin (Corn)
- Milk Fat
- Milk Ingredients
- Natural Flavor
- Natural Vanilla Flavor
- Palm Kernel Oil
- Pectin
- PGPR
- Pomegranate Juice Concentrate
- Raspberry Juice Concentrate
- Salt
- Sodium Bicarbonate
- Sodium Citrate
- Soya Lecithin
- Sugar
- Tapioca Dextrin
- Unsweetened Chocolate
- Whey
- Wheat Flour
- Whole Milk Powder
[Source]
As always I’ve highlighted the ingredients that we need to take a closer look at.
Non-Vegan Ingredients
Milk
Several ingredients made from milk can be found throughout the flavors of Brookside chocolate such as whey, whole milk powder and milk fat. These are made from cow’s milk and are not vegan-friendly.
Honey
The second non-vegan ingredient found is honey. It made by bees and vegans don’t eat anything that insects produce either. The second part is the exploitation of bees where we take their honey and replace it with sugar.
Confectioner’s Glaze
This ingredient is made from a bug in eastern Asia and can also be considered a non-vegan ingredient.
Questionable Ingredients
Sugar
There is an instance where sugar could be classified as not vegan-friendly. In the candy and sweets industry you will normally see either beet sugar or cane sugar. Beet sugar is always vegan-friendly, but the cane sugar might not always be.
In order to use the cane sugar in a product it’s often refined and in this process the sugar is also bleached. A common way to bleach the sugar is to use bone char from dead cows. Exploiting animals in the production process does not align with veganism.
Natural Flavor
Natural flavors is a tricky ingredient for vegans, because the source rarely disclosed. This ingredient is an umbrella which means that it can contain ingredients from several different sources only to be called natural flavors. So the source of some of the ingredient could be from animals.
Palm Oil
The palm oil industry is know for the severe impact it has on the environment because of the deforestation taking place to make new plantations. This forces animals such as orangutans and rhinos from their homes. This would make regular palm oil not vegan-friendly.
However there is a way to make the palm oil vegan-friendly and it’s called RSPO. It’s a non-profit organisation that helps companies produce and buy sustainable palm oil. This would have a much lower impact on the environment.
Corn & Soy
These two crops are common GMO crops in USA and they need a high amount of herbicide to gain good yields. The problem with this is the fact that the herbicide can pollute the surrounding ecosystem and cause severe damage.
Vegan Alternative To Brookside Chocolates
I found a great alternative called Hu Hunks Vegan Chocolate Covered Almonds.
Conclusion
It’s too bad that none of the flavors of Brookside chocolates are vegan, but I found a great alternative that you could try and personally I love the Hu Hunks Vegan Chocolate Covered Almonds.
There are so many non-vegan and questionable ingredients in Brookside chocolates that they are a long way from being vegan, but we can hope that they will make vegan products in the future.
Thanks for reading, take care!
