Kosher pareve semi-sweet chocolate chips have been returning to Trader Joe’s stores across the country in recent weeks, a delectable sight for halachic shoppers since they disappeared from the shelves in 2012.
It was a great kosher calamity at the time, reminiscent of the bank runs before the Great Depression. Frantic shoppers cleaned out the Trader Joe’s shelves and bought the pareve chips at steep markups on eBay.
By Rachel Weintraub
Rachel Weintraub saved this bag of Trader Joe’s pareve chocolate chips for a special occasion after they went off shelves in 2012. Five years later, she used its contents to bake her grandmother’s mandel brot recipe for her son’s bar mitzvah.
Trader Joe’s instead began selling chocolate chips certified dairy, and that robbed many a kosher cook of an affordable, easily accessible chocolate option when meat is served — as it is for most Sabbath and holiday meals.
So the reintroduction of the pareve variety, is, for many a Jewish household, sweet news indeed.
Mia Bertoncin, manager of the Trader Joe’s store in Culver City — on Los Angeles’ Westside, said her customers have long waited for the pareve chips, and that the bags are flying off the shelves.
“We have a lot of excited customers at our West L.A. location,” she said. “People are asking us where they are. People have been buying them in bunches.”
The new OU-certified pareve chocolate chips are made by a different supplier, according to a company representative, and seem to use a different recipe than the semi-sweet dairy chips they are replacing. Compared to the dairy chips, which came in a clear plastic bag, the pareve ones — in white bags — are slightly softer.
By Louis Keene
The new kosher pareve chips and chunks come in new packaging and are certified by the OU.
A San Diego kosher cook offered some insight as to why the chip change is a big deal.
“Pareve chocolate chips, especially decent ones, are hard to come by,” said Chaya Sara Ceitlin, whose post about the chips in the “Kosher Trader Joe’s” Facebook group has garnered nearly 1,000 likes and 170 comments. “The convenience is amazing.”
Ceitlin lives in San Diego, where the closest thing to a kosher grocery is a Ralph’s supermarket 20 minutes from her home that has a kosher section. She does the bulk of her grocery shopping at a Trader Joe’s five minutes away.
The Link LonkJune 19, 2021 at 03:47AM
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A kosher calamity ends: Trader Joe’s reintroduces pareve chocolate chips - Forward
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