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Few things bring as much joy as a chocolate bar, and Lily’s chocolate is the best of the best. Founded in 1992, Lily’s chocolate has been making the world a sweeter place one chocolate bar at a time. Made with only the finest ingredients, Lily’s chocolate is the perfect treat for any chocolate lover. But, is Lily’s chocolate vegan?
All flavors of Lily’s extra dark chocolate are vegan because they don’t contain any animal-sourced ingredients.
Below is a table showing Lily’s chocolate flavors and its vegan status.
Flavor | Vegan Status |
Blood Orange Extra Dark Chocolate | Vegan. |
Extra Dark Extra Dark Chocolate | Vegan. |
Salted Almond Extra Dark Chocolate | Vegan. |
Sea Salt Extra Dark Chocolate | Vegan. |
Salted Caramel Extra Dark Chocolate | Vegan. |
Extremely Dark Extra Dark Chocolate | Vegan. |
Intensely Dark Extra Dark Chocolate | Vegan. |
Crispy Rice Dark Chocolate | No, contains Milk. |
Almond Dark Chocolate | No, contains Milk. |
Coconut Dark Chocolate | No, contains Milk. |
Original Dark Chocolate | No, contains Milk. |
Creamy Milk | No, contains Milk. |
Milk Chocolate Style Salted Almond | No, contains Milk. |
Milk Chocolate Style Salted Caramel | No, contains Milk. |
Milk Chocolate Style Hazelnut | No, contains Milk. |
Original White Chocolate Style | No, contains Milk. |
White Chocolate Style Birthday Cake | No, contains Milk. |
White Chocolate Style Cookies & Crème | No, contains Milk. |
Lily’s Chocolate Ingredients
Below is a list of ingredients from all the flavors that I could find.
- Annatto
- Blood Orange Oil
- Cabbage Beta Carotene
- Canola Oil
- Carnauba Wax
- Cellulose
- Chicory Root Fiber
- Cocoa
- Cocoa Butter
- Coconut
- Cookie Pieces
- Corn Starch
- Dextrin
- Dry Roasted Almonds
- Erythritol
- Glycerin
- Gum Arabic
- Hazelnuts
- Milk (rBST Free)
- Milk Fat (rBST Free)
- Natural Flavors
- Orange Peel
- Organic Crispy Brown Rice (Organic Brown Rice
- Organic Rice Syrup
- Palm Kernel Oil
- Salt
- Sea Salt
- Soluble Corn Fiber
- Sprinkles
- Stevia Extract
- Sunflower Lecithin
- Unsweetened Chocolate
- Vanilla Extract
- Whole Milk Powder (rBST Free)
[Source]
As always I’ve highlighted the ingredients that we need to take a closer look at.
Non-Vegan Ingredients
Milk
There are several milk ingredients in some of the flavors and they are not vegan.
Questionable Ingredients
Natural Flavors
This ingredient is tricky for vegans because it can consist of many ingredients and there is no way of knowing if they are animal-sourced or made from plants. If the product is labeled vegan by a trusted organisation then the natural flavors in that product would be vegan-friendly.
Palm Kernel Oil
Palm oil is a highly controversial ingredient and it’s not only vegans that are staying away since the terrible news about deforestation was made public, but many people around the world are now away about the problem. The deforestation is causing issues for wildlife and forcing orangutans away from their natural habitat. There are heartbreaking videos on YouTube where orangutans are trying to fight off excavators from destroying their forest.
The palm oil is a lucrative market because it’s one of the most profitable vegetable oils to produce in the world. This is one of the causes that so many companies want to product palm oil and the industry has had poor regulations for a long time, resulting in a severe deforestation.
In an effort to produce more sustainable palm oil, a non-profit organisation was formed called RSPO. They are working hard to help companies produce and buy sustainable palm oil. Hershey’s bought Lily’s sweets and they are a RSPO member, meaning that the palm oil found in Lily’s chocolates is indeed vegan-friendly.
Conclusion
It’s amazing that so many flavors of Lily’s Extra Dark Chocolate is vegan, giving us another tasty treat to add to our shopping lists. The palm oil is RSPO certified, which also is great news, this ingredient can only be found in a few of the Lily’s chocolate flavors.
Thanks for reading, take care!