I was in one of my favourite chocolate shops when I heard a customer ask “Do you sell gluten free chocolate?” My ears immediately perked up and I tried to nonchalantly see what the person behind the counter would do. She started pointing out a number of chocolates behind the counter that were ‘gluten free’.
Basically, pure chocolate does not contain gluten (just cocoa, cocoa butter, milk and sugar). But if you start adding things like wafers, pretzels, cookie bits, barley malt or any other ingredient which is derived from wheat, rye or barley, then the chocolate is no longer gluten free.
The great thing about this particular chocolate shop is that their production facility is located on site (literally through the doors behind the counter) so in this case, it was really easy to find out which chocolates were gluten free.
In general, pure milk or dark chocolate are a safe bets because they don’t have extra things added to them. But you will also be okay with chocolate that has dried fruit, ginger and nuts. Caramels should be okay too. But you never know if they added additional ingredients during production that contained gluten so it’s always best to ask. Going to smaller, artisanal shops like where their production facility is in the same building, makes it a lot easier.