What Michaels Employees Wish You Knew About Its Chocolate

Candy makers, take note. In two separate Reddit posts in the subreddit devoted to employees of Michaels arts and crafts stores, workers grumbled about the store's chocolate. On both occasions, they were referring to the store's candy melts, which are similar to chocolate, but are made so they do not require tempering. The issue is that the stores referenced in the Reddit posts have too much of the product and it has been sitting there for too long.

"I'm so frustrated at the amount of sweet tooth fairy ... chocolate melts we have. They are a discontinued candy, yet we still have 32 more boxes of overstock," wrote one employee on Reddit. Another Reddit post included a photo of a room full of overstock candy melts with the poster writing: "I know they send us a shipment once a year but holy smokes." Others chimed in to specify the company only ships the candy melts in the cooler seasons so they don't melt in transit. One poster, who presumably works at a Michaels warehouse, wrote, "I remember shipping those out. How are they still in stores?!"

The next time you're at Michaels with plans to make professional-looking cake pops using candy melts, check underneath the best-by date sticker. According to two Reddit threads on r/MichaelsEmployees from 2023, employees were instructed to put stickers with new best-by dates on top of Sweet Tooth Fairy melts that were past their original expiration dates. One person replied, writing that it was a directive from Sweet Tooth Fairy, not Michaels, and that best-by dates were safe to change. It's true that the best-by date is an indicator of an item's highest quality and not food safety. Chocolate is usually safe to eat past its expiration date — it just might not be as enjoyable. While the FDA does not require date labels on most foods, states have a variety of different rules on labels and whether or not you're allowed to sell past a certain date. A Sweet Tooth Fairy competitor, Wilton, says its candy melts remain fresh for 18 months after manufacturing.

Other employees at Michaels also report their store not checking the best-by or expiration dates of candy melts for years past the expiration. On one Reddit thread, an employee threw away a cart full of candy melts while implying they didn't find all the expired candy. One ex-employee responded, saying that, during their time working at Michaels, they discovered six cartfuls of candy that was two years past its expiry date.

If you're having trouble finding good-quality candy melts in stores, you may want to use real chocolate. Learning to properly temper your chocolate can be a skill — luckily, we asked an expert about the best way to temper chocolate. With a little extra work, using real chocolate will make whatever you're creating that much better!