Chocolate Chips Ahoy Vey
The Wall Street Journal, New York Post and Forward follow-up on CrownHeights.CH reporting about Trader Joe's Chocolate Chips becoming dairy and teaching readers about Cholov Yisroel.
The national press has picked up on CrownHeights.CH first report about Trader Joe's semisweet chocolate chips now being labeled Kosher Dairy instead of Kosher Parve.
"Race Is On to Stockpile After New Version Has Its Kosher Credentials Downgraded," the Wall Street Journal, the largest daily in the U.S., reported Thursday in an article on its front page.
"As message boards and blogs burned with news of the switch last week, customers across the U.S. began hoarding the last bags of pareve chocolate chips. Now, empty shelves are all that is left at many Trader Joe's outposts," Amelia Harris reported.
Shulamis Labkowski, co-director of Chabad House of Oakland in California, told the paper that she bought 40 packets at $2.29 a piece after hearing about the switch.
An avid baker and a Shlucha who organizes women and children's programs, Labkowski tore through 5 to 7 bags a week to make treats without worrying about running afoul of the rules.
The New York Post, in its signature style of reporting, wrote: "Observant Jews across the country were hit by a plague of Old Testament proportions."
What is unique about these chips, aside from the price, is that it is one of the few products that contained both cocoa butter as well as chocolate liquor and were parve (and thus, allowed to be eaten after meat).
The Journal also mentioned that Cheder Menachem boys school in Los Angeles is raffling off 20 packets of the parve chips at its auction night in June, as reported on CrownHeights.CH.
A change.org petition, "Trader Joe's: Keep the Chocolate Chips Pareve!," has attracted than 4,632 signatures so far and there are similar campaigns on Facebook.
The status change in Trader Joe's chips is a result of a cost-cutting move by the manufacturer of the chips, said Rabbi Chaim Fogelman, a Kashrus coordinator for the OK Kosher, which certifies the chips.
The new move changed the way the manufacturer cleaned the equipment, putting chips into bags on a production line that also processes milk chocolate.
But both Trader Joe's and OK Kosher declined to name the manufacturer ultimately as the one responsible for the change.
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