Christmas Celebrated With Expired Chocolate

Swiss company Post Bus, a subsidiary of the national postal service, thought holiday chocolates would be a delightful way to thank its most loyal customers, but the plan went south when many customers realized the chocolate was past its "best before" date.

"I found it super to get a candy in my mail but I can't tell you my bitterness when I saw the past-due date," moaned one recipient, whose bar told her it should have been eaten by Nov. 20.

According to The Local, Post Bus sent out 15,000 100-gram bars of Torino chocolate by Swiss chocolatier Camille Bloch as a loyalty reward last month, but the company neglected to have the chocolates sent with express shipping. As a result, many customers only received their chocolate bars last week, and in thousands of cases that was past the bars' best before dates.

"It was really our fault and we are sorry for that," said company spokesperson Katharina Merkle.

Merkle said any customers affected could contact the company by email to receive newer chocolate bars, though she did specify that it was not actually harmful to eat a chocolate bar past its best before date.

"It's not dangerous for one's health," she said. "I tried one yesterday; it was good."