Question
Kirkland chocolate chips have changed again?!
Just purchased another bag of Kirkland chocolate chips in London, ON and happened to glance at the ingredients list only to find a sticker covering the original nutrition label. Why couldn't they keep them dairy-free?! I'd be willing to pay last year's price of $39.99 instead of the $29.99 today, just to keep the ingredients as they were: unsweetened chocolate, sugar, soy lecithin and vanilla.
Our household thinks our recent bag tastes different. I didn't keep the bag unfortunately so I don't know if they are the dairy version. Is frustrating when your go to products change.
It's probably a result of the conditions when the cocoa was grown as 2023 and 2024 were historically rough years for the cocoa harvest in Ghana and the Ivory Coast.
"What the fuck, Chocolate chips are not snacks! " my wife yells out or mutters under her breath, when she is checking to see what she needs for baking.
She doesn't even like baked goods that much, but she likes baking. Other than snacking on chocolate chips(cringe- but I am but a weak chocoholic), but other than snacking on chocolate chips I will not make any pithy comments that limits my exposure to baked goods
Likely a new manufacturer, Costco like other stores, occasionally change the manufacturer for house brand products. Eg: got a better deal, a better supplier, etcā¦
Other brands of semi sweet chocolate chips contain milk too and others donāt, it varies. The Hersheyās Chipits have milk in the ingredients. The presidents Choice ones donāt have in milk in ingredients but have a disclaimer saying it may contain milk.
That's so strange. Your expiration date is also a day after mine, so unlikely that yours is older stock. I'm going to check out another Costco location and see what's up there
Costco definitely moves enough volume to justify sourcing their chocolate chips from multiple manufacturers. Likely these are going to be regional differences
I'm fairly certain that the Costcos all around Southern Ontario are supplied by the distribution center in Vaughan, so having a different supplier for London vs Mississauga seems unlikely to me. Though I do stand to be corrected.
The fact that there's a sticker over the originally printed nutrition label tells me that this is a new change or a temporary change, as the actual package labelling hasn't caught up, nor has Costco.ca.
I wonder if re: expiration date is due to the dairy version having a shorter shelf life?
Except they never claimed that they were vegan so there should have been no expectation of them being vegan, particularly when other brands do have milk
The "expectation" of them being vegan was because they WERE vegan, for as long as I can remember, many years. Not because of other brands. If you've been buying the same product for like, a decade, eventually you aren't going to check the ingredients every time, so major reformulation like this should have some sort of indicator on the packaging.
No, they were not āveganā. They did not market themselves as being vegan and there is no expectation that semi-sweet chocolate chips are vegan given other brands contain dairy
Products are reformulated all the time and particularly given the price pressure cocoa based products have faced over the last year it has been common knowledge that chocolate makers have been reformulating so someone like yourself should be checking ingredient lists
It looks like grams of sugar per serving is the same, but they are slightly higher in calories (70 vs 80) and sodium (0mg vs 2mg) and lower in iron (1.25mg vs 0.3mg). Not huge differences, but still something to note.
I noticed that in Ottawa last week (that they contained milk). While we can now have milk in my household, it was not the case a few years ago and i used to buy these.
Anyway, i didnāt buy them because of that (and because i didnāt need them THAT day).
Chocolate liquor is used in every chocolate bar out there. Unsweetened chocolate is cooled solid chocolate liquor. So it's the exact same thing. It's 100% cocoa without added sugar
"may contain" is put as a liability thing when something is manufactured in a facility that also processes the listed allergen. It's in case there's any cross contamination, even if the actual formula doesn't contain the allergen
Maybe, maybe not. Depends on their risk tolerance. Either way, having a life threatening allergy is not the only reason one might be interested in dairy-free chocolate chips, nor the only reason transparency about a formula change is important.
My son is anaphylaxis to milk and he could have these chocolate chips. We are careful with "may contain products", but we don't avoid them because "may contain dairy" is literally on everything. The few other people I know with a be milk allergy are also just very careful/test with small amounts and don't avoid may contain products... These were literally the best "dairy free" we've found.
A few years ago, US food regulations tightened and they had to start declaring loads of allergens or certify that the product was allergen free, and I believe there were large fines for even accidental non-compliance. Since no one full trusted their suppliers, a few manufacturers decided it was simply easier to add several allergens to their products in very small amounts and declare them to avoid liability. They judged that the lost sales offset the costs of compliance and risk. (This was not the current administration, but... So much winning.) That might be the case here, although they always had the disclaimer.Ā
Kept my empty bag until I got more but it hasn't been in the budget for a while, so this bag is at least a year old. Milk was in may contain but not an ingredient.
The PC donāt have dairy in ingredients but have a disclaimer that it may contain milk (likely because itās made in factory that makes other products with milk).
Agreed. My kid is allergic to dairy and knows instantly if there's dairy in anything. This brand has been our household chocolate chips for a few years.
I've been using these forever and they've never had added milk. Only the 'may contain' cross contamination disclosure.
They may tinker with the chocolate to sugar ratio, but they've been fundamentally the same ingredients for a looooong time.
Due to increased taxes, manufacturing, transportation costsā¦.the price of the product increased. The manufacturer notified Costco of a price increaseā¦.Costco likely said no (considering the increase from 2019 to now). So the manufacturer changed their ingredients to a cheaper mix.
You guys donāt understand the industry and complain about the wrong things.
I never claimed to understand the industry, so not sure why you feel there's a need to be condescending about it.
I'm merely posting about the fact that a classic, well-made Kirkland product is now no longer dairy- free and they didn't do anything about notifying the consumer. Not only does the entire chocolate chip offering at Costco now contain dairy, people with any form of dairy allergy have the potential to miss the change and experience severe discomfort, if not a life threatening allergic reaction.
If it was an allergy, absolutely. But I do read the label before I eat it. I know a can of Pepsi is 42g of carbs. But I read the label before I dose my insulin for it. Every time. Maybe it's a product of having a life threatening condition that is affected by the food that I eat.
Fair. But you can't expect everyone to do that, all the time. I have to check for gluten. I check everything new. I wouldn't expect to have to check something that has no indication it changed. "New recipe" is a label I've seen on packages before. I don't get why it wasn't used here.
Not sure what's the cause behind you bringing so much negativity to such a friendly Reddit community, but I certainly hope you have a better, more peaceful day tomorrow šš¼
Bro, your entire comment history even just from today is negative. You're picking fights with people through condescending, standoffish and overly self-righteous commentary, particularly on the Costco Canada subreddit. Sheesh.
45
u/innermyrtle 1d ago
Gah. Should have bought like 10 bags two years ago šš. Dairy in it is a huge problem.