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Clarification on Trader Joes Chocolate Chips (Dairy or Dairy Equipment)

Trader Joes chocolate chipsUPDATE: The OK published an update that confirms our info below. Click here to read their announcement

There has been a lot of confusion and mixed messages regarding the recent announcement of Trader Joes chocolate chips becoming OK-D, i.e. no longer pareve.

Originally, when we asked the OK (on Twitter), we received notification that the product itself was not dairy, implying that this was merely "DE", or Dairy Equipment, which is still not the same as pareve, but can be eaten after a meat meal (like Oreos – which are pareve/DE), except by those that only eat Chalav Yisroel.

Hearing reports from others who spoke to the OK, we called them for clarification. The official response from the OK is that the message we and others received on Twitter was a mistake. The product line that manufacturers the pareve chocolate chips for Trader Joes also does dairy chocolate chips (non Chalav Yisroel), and neither Trader Joes, nor the OK, can guarantee that there will not be dairy chips getting into the bags of the pareve chips.

Thus, it is entirely possible that the bag of non-dairy Trader Joes chocolate chips actually has some, albeit few, dairy chips in the bag as well, or none at all, hence the OK-D symbol.

I hope this clears up the situation, although I know this is not a satisfactory answer for many, especially those who bake with this product regularly or whom only eat Cholov Yisrael.

If you'd like to protest Trader Joes' decision to change this product, you can sign this following online petition.

Shabbat Shalom.

-Dani

About the author

Dani Klein

Dani Klein founded YeahThatsKosher in 2008 as a global kosher restaurant & travel resource for the Jewish community.

He is passionate about traveling the world, good kosher food / restaurants, social media & the web, technology, hiking, strategy games, and spending time with his friends & family.

9 Comments

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  • Wow – what a sad comment about quality assurance in the food processing world. I imagine there would be an equally serious uproar from the allergen-sensitive community.

    • That is why many of my non-kosher observant or gentile friends who had dairy sensitivities preferred to buy kosher pareve.

  • it’s because chocolate equipment can’t be cleaned using traditional methods. they need to be cleaned with more chocolate, so the first few batches of non-milk chocolate will have more milk in them than the later batches.  it’s not a matter of being careful, it’s just the nature of chocolate.  (that saying “water and oil don’t mix” isn’t just a saying, it’s especially true for chocolate.)

    what these processors need to do is have 3 levels of packaging. 1 for the dairy, 1 for the transitional, and 1 for the non-dairy.  (or, you know, take the dairy out, since it’s not only not kosher nor vegan nor free from allergens, but it prevents the body from benefitting from the positive aspects of chocolate.  there are plenty of non-dairy light-colored chocolate manufacturers. go the plant route. everyone will benefit.)


  • Originally, when we asked the OK (on Twitter), we received notification that the product itself was not dairy, implying that this was merely “DE”, or Dairy Equipment, which is still not the same as pareve, but can be eaten after a meat meal (like Oreos – which are pareve/DE), except by those that only eat Chalav Yisroel.

    Why is this an issue only for those who eat Cholov Yisroel? Does Rav Moishe’s shitta about the halachic status of American milk change anything in terms of the hilchos of basar v’chalav?