"Dark" is not a promise on a Lindt wrapper. Our database holds 182 Lindt products, from the Excellence percentage bars to Lindor truffles, Gold Bunnies and the Vegan range. Nine pass our vegan check. One hundred and forty-seven fail, and 26 stay open. The number that surprises people is not the 147. It is how many of them say "dark" on the front.
The dark bars that contain milk
The word to look for is not "milk chocolate". It is "milk fat", "anhydrous milk fat", "butterfat" or "concentrated dairy butter", sitting quietly in the middle of a dark bar's list.
- 70% Extra Dark Lindor Truffles: cocoa mass, sugar, vegetable fat, cocoa butter, low fat cocoa, anhydrous milk fat, whole milk powder, skimmed milk powder, lactose. Every Lindor in our data, including the dark ones, fails this way.
- Excellence Mint Intense: sugar, cocoa mass, cocoa butter, anhydrous milk fat, soya lecithin, peppermint oil.
- Excellence Roasted Hazelnut Dark, US: sugar, chocolate, hazelnuts, cocoa butter, milkfat.
- The US Excellence Dark Chocolate with sea salt (47% cocoa): sugar, chocolate, cocoa butter, milkfat, soy lecithin, sea salt.
- The French Excellence Noir Fleur de Sel and Noir Sésame Grillé: concentrated dairy butter.
Counted across the 148 fails: milk named on 98 lists, lactose on 72, milk powder on 57, whole milk on 34, milk fat on 31, butter on 30, skimmed milk on 29. Two bars list honey. The Gold Bunny, the Lindor range, the filled bars and the Hello range are milk chocolate and fail as expected. The flavoured dark bars are the ones that catch people out.
The percentage bars: no milk on the list, but read the line after
The plain Excellence percentage bars are a different recipe. Excellence 100% Cocoa is cocoa mass, cocoa butter and fat-reduced cocoa, and it passes. The UK 85% Cocoa Robust Dark is cocoa mass, fat-reduced cocoa, cocoa butter, demerara sugar and vanilla, and it passes. So does the US Excellence 85% Cacao Rich Dark.
The 70% and 90% bars are where our check hesitates. The UK Excellence 70% Cocoa lists chocolate, sugar, cocoa butter, soy lecithin and bourbon vanilla beans. The French Excellence Noir Intense 70% lists cocoa paste, sugar, cocoa butter and vanilla. The Noir Prodigieux 90% lists cocoa mass, cocoa butter, fat-reduced cocoa, sugar and vanilla. Nothing on those lists comes from an animal. They come back "not sure" because the flavouring entry on those records, vanilla or "natural vanilla flavour", is one the Open Food Facts analysis could not settle, and because most of them carry a "may contain milk" line and no vegan mark. Twenty-six records stay open on that basis, almost all of them 70%, 85%, 90% and 100% bars from different markets.
One record shows the gap between a pack and a database. A 70% chocolate bar sold in the Netherlands used to fail our check because its allergen data listed milk, while the pack lists only cocoa mass, sugar, cocoa butter and vanilla, with milk, nuts, soya and sesame in the "may contain" line. We checked the label photo and corrected the record; it now passes with a may-contain warning, like the other plain percentage bars that carry a vegan mark. When a record contradicts the pack, the printed pack is the document to trust, and the report link on the product page is how it gets fixed.
The Vegan range
Lindt sells bars with "Vegan" on the front, and those are the clean passes. Vegan Smooth Chocolate and Vegan Caramel Sea Salt carry the European Vegetarian Union vegan mark in our data, Vegan Roasted Salty Almonds carries a vegan label, and so does a Dark Chocolate bar and a Czech dark orange bar. These are the eight passes, together with the 100% and 85% bars above. The full list is on the Lindt vegan page.
What "may contain milk" means here
Almost every Lindt dark bar carries a "may contain milk" line, because the bars are made on lines that also make milk chocolate. That line is not an ingredient. It is a cross-contact statement, and it does not change a vegan verdict on its own; our check reads the ingredient list, not the warning. It does matter to someone with a milk allergy, which is a separate question from a vegan one, and we wrote about the difference in What "may contain" really tells you.
Lindt at a glance
| Product | Milk on the list | Vegan mark | Verdict |
|---|---|---|---|
| Excellence 100%, 85% | none | none | yes |
| Excellence 70%, 90% | none | none | not sure (flavouring line, no mark) |
| Excellence flavoured dark (mint, sea salt, hazelnut, orange) | milk fat or butter on most | none | no |
| Lindor, all cocoa levels | milk fat, milk powder, lactose | none | no |
| Gold Bunny, Hello, filled bars | milk | none | no |
| Vegan Smooth, Vegan Caramel Sea Salt, Vegan Roasted Almonds | none | EVU vegan / vegan label | yes |
How to check a bar in the shop
- Ignore the word "dark" and the percentage on the front. Read the list.
- Look for milk fat, anhydrous milk fat, butterfat, concentrated dairy butter, milk powder and lactose. Any of these is a no.
- On a plain percentage bar with none of those, the list is cocoa mass, cocoa butter, sugar and vanilla. That is a yes on ingredients; the "may contain" line is a cross-contact warning, not an ingredient.
- If you want a mark rather than a reading, the Vegan range carries one.
Every Lindt product in our database has its own page with the ingredient list and the vegan, halal and other verdicts side by side, and the vegan chocolate category compares other brands. For the wider pattern of milk fat in dark chocolate, see Dark chocolate and milk fat.
FAQ
Is Lindt 70% dark chocolate vegan?
The plain Excellence 70% bars in our data list no milk ingredient: cocoa mass, sugar, cocoa butter, vanilla, sometimes soy lecithin. They come back "not sure" because of the flavouring entry and the absence of a vegan mark, and they carry a "may contain milk" line. The flavoured 70% bars (mint, sea salt, hazelnut) usually contain milk fat and fail.
Is Lindt 85% vegan?
The UK and US Excellence 85% bars pass our check on their ingredient lists.
Is Lindor dark chocolate vegan?
No. Every Lindor in our data, including 60% and 70% Extra Dark, lists anhydrous milk fat, milk powder and lactose.
Does Lindt make a vegan chocolate?
Yes. Vegan Smooth, Vegan Caramel Sea Salt and Vegan Roasted Salty Almonds carry a vegan mark on the pack and pass our check.