Is Ghirardelli Holiday assortment minis chocolate, dark chocolate sea salt caramel, peppermint bark, milk chocolate caramel, dark chocolate mint ultra-processed?

48 Chocolates Sold in the United States

Yes, it's ultra-processed

1 Unprocessed
2 Kitchen staple
3 Processed
4 Ultra-processed

Signs of ultra-processing in its ingredients:

Flavouring
Glucose
High fructose corn syrup
Fructose
E322 Lecithins

19 ingredients
2 additives
Nutri-Score E

Less processed chocolates

Less processed isn't automatically healthier, so compare the labels for what matters to you, such as sugar or salt.

Ingredients

Ultra-processing Processing signs are highlighted

Sugar (processing marker), chocolate, cocoa butter, corn syrup (ultra-processing marker), whole milk powder (processing marker), sweetened condensed milk (milk, sugar (processing marker)), palm oil, high fructose corn syrup (ultra-processing marker), water, milk fat, butter (processing marker) (cream, salt (processing marker)), nonfat dry milk (processing marker), soy lecithin (ultra-processing marker), natural and artificial flavor (ultra-processing marker), sor

Additives: E322 Lecithins , E322i Lecithin

As written on the pack

Sugar, unsweetened chocolate, cocoa butter, corn syrup, whole milk powder, sweetened condensed milk (milk, sugar), palm oil, high fructose corn syrup, water, milk fat, butter (cream, salt), nonfat dry milk, soy lecithin, natural and artificial flavor, sor

What makes it ultra-processed

Cosmetic additives

Added to change how the food looks, feels or tastes, not to keep it safe. A hallmark of ultra-processed food.

E322 Lecithins Lecithins are fatty substances extracted mostly from soybeans, sunflower seeds or eggs, used as emulsifiers to keep fat and water mixed, for example in chocolate.
Flavouring Flavourings are concentrated aroma preparations that add or intensify a taste.

Substances rarely used in home kitchens

Refined or extracted in factories, such as syrups made from starch or isolated proteins. The other hallmark of ultra-processed food.

Glucose Glucose, usually listed as glucose syrup, is cheap, keeps products moist and stops sugar from crystallising.
High fructose corn syrup High-fructose corn syrup is made from corn starch: enzymes break it down to glucose and convert part of that into fructose, giving a syrup about as sweet as table sugar.
Fructose Fructose is the sugar found naturally in fruit and honey, but as an ingredient it is refined industrially, mostly from corn starch.

6 ingredients that would only make it processed

Kitchen staples like sugar, salt and oil. On their own they make a food processed, not ultra-processed.

Chocolates Products in the category "Chocolates" are at least group 3.
Butter Butter, the fat churned from cream.
Salt Salt, added for taste and preservation.
Sugar Sugar refined from sugar cane or beet.
Sweet snacks Products in the category "Sweet snacks" are at least group 3.
Milk powder Milk powder is milk with the water evaporated off: a preserved form of a whole food rather than an industrial extract.

How the NOVA groups work

Among 959 chocolates

From least to most processed, this one ranks 824th. 82% of the chocolates here are ultra-processed.

Ranked by NOVA group, then by the number of ultra-processing signs, additives and ingredients. Our ordering, not part of NOVA.

All 959 chocolates, least processed first

About this information

Data from this product on Open Food Facts (barcode 0747599402975, last edited 10 February 2022), available under the Open Database License. If something is wrong or the recipe has changed, you can correct it there.
Photo: Open Food Facts contributors, CC BY-SA 3.0.
The NOVA group is an automated estimate from crowdsourced data: a missing or mistyped ingredient can change it.
NOVA measures processing, not nutrition. For nutrition, Open Food Facts gives this product a Nutri-Score of E (from A, best, to E).
General information, not medical or dietary advice. Check the pack if you have an allergy.