I recently came across a chocolate milk drink sold in Croatia that contains only 60% of actual milk, and I found that pretty surprising. To me, "chocolate milk" implies that it's primarily milk with added cocoa and sugar – not a product that's a bit over half milk and the rest… something else.
From what I could find, in my country the guideline states that beverages with at least 50% milk equivalent can still be labeled as "chocolate milk". But that seems like a pretty low threshold for a product that prominently uses the word "milk" in its name. Milk-based would make more sense.
So my questions are:
- Is there an official EU regulation that defines how much actual milk a drink must contain to legally be called "chocolate milk"?
- Or is this left to individual member states?
- How do your country handle this in practice?
- Bonus question, do you often read labels and do you sometimes don't buy something because of the ingredients list / nutrition table?
Thank you all!