For National Chocolate Day, America’s chocolate preference is clear: 45% prefer milk chocolate, while 34% favor dark, with 9% unable to decide, 9% liking neither, and 3% having no opinion. This preference reveals fascinating patterns about age, adventure, and even holiday traditions.
Young adults 18-29 overwhelmingly choose milk chocolate at 68%, but this drops steadily with age—by 65+, the split narrows to 52% milk versus 48% dark. The shift suggests either evolving palates or generational differences in chocolate exposure. Regionally, the Midwest shows the strongest milk preference at 58%, while the West is most dark-friendly at 49%.
But when we focus on just those with clear preferences (excluding undecided, neither, and no opinion groups), lifestyle differences emerge sharply:
- Holiday Preferences: At Halloween, milk chocolate fans overwhelmingly cite eating candy as their favorite activity (25% vs 17% of dark lovers). For Thanksgiving sides, milk lovers gravitate toward stuffing (37% vs 31%), while dark chocolate fans show slightly stronger preference for green bean casserole.
- Soda Habits: The Dr Pepper divide is particularly telling—54% of milk chocolate lovers rate it favorably compared to 47% of dark chocolate fans, while dark chocolate enthusiasts are more likely to be neutral or unfavorable toward the sweet soda.
- Communication Styles: Dark chocolate fans are nearly twice as likely to prefer mobile messaging apps for communication (11% vs 6% for milk lovers). Meanwhile, milk chocolate enthusiasts lean slightly more toward traditional texting/SMS (43% vs 39%).
- Documentary Devotion: Dark chocolate enthusiasts are notably more likely to watch documentaries—43% do versus 38% of milk chocolate fans, suggesting a correlation between sophisticated palates and educational content preferences.
Dark chocolate lovers emerge as more adventurous eaters, documentary watchers, and plant-based experimenters who prefer complex flavors across categories. Milk chocolate fans stick with familiar comforts—traditional holiday foods, sweeter sodas, and straightforward entertainment. In the chocolate aisle, we’re not just choosing cocoa percentages—we’re revealing whether we seek comfort or complexity, tradition or adventure, sweet simplicity or bitter sophistication.
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This article’s data comes solely from CivicScience’s database, which contains nearly 700,000 poll questions and 5 billion consumer insights.