By COLlive reporter
The national press has picked up on COLlive.com’s 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 COLlive.com.
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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its crazy what are we going to do without chocolate chips? i feel like we need to make a grand worldwide petition otherwise we might starve. im already getting hungry thinking about it-now having chocolate chips might do something to my system. im surprised people only bought 40 bags. i bought 300 i hope it lasts until next pesach. its almost all i eat and i have to clue what im going to do next year after pesach without them. i think im going to have to eat a different brand. maybe ill bring in the ones from england i… Read more »
I AGREE!!!
If only we put this much enthusiasm in educating our kids, dressing properly, learning and bringing moshiach.
Who cares about Egypt (and besides, it’s Syria)
Wouldn’t be proud of being put in that section of the wsj. It was a murdach move to tabloid-tize the paper and is the equivelent of page 5 in the nyp. Most financial professionals have long since moved on to the financial times since the WSJ changed to go mainstream. The paper is one of the few that are pro Irael so gotto give murdach credit for that.
Here, we’re fighting for some kosher chocolate chips…
What about Whole Foods Chocolate chips–ok certified, pareve, has cocoa butter and chocolate liquor! What am I missing here.?…….
tnx collive for reporting about things to do with a kiddush hashem
we must remember that the world is reading you
http://www.chedermenachemauction.com
BS”D
Very nice!
Boruch Hashem, MOSHAICH NOW!
It has nothing to do with Cholov Yisroel. The main issue at hand is that they are now milchigs and cannot be eaten at a meat meal