Choco Taco’s were introduced in Philadelphia in 1983.
Jack & Jill Ice Cream was the original creator.
After 39 years, Choco Taco will be discontinued and figuring out why they did it, it’s important to look at the history of the brand.
Diving in, Choco Taco’s were sold by Jack & Jill Ice Cream originally, which is a large producer for most ice cream novelties, while also being an east coast distributor for Mars, Nestle and others, selling mainly ice cream, but also DiGiorno frozen pizza’s.
The way Klondike got involved was a process involving licensing on manufacturing.
Jack & Jill had such demand for Choco Taco’s, they outsourced the manufacturing to Gold Bond Ice Cream in Virginia.
Unilever purchased Gold Bond in 1989, getting the ice cream manufacturing they had and obtained the exclusive license to manufacture Choco Taco’s.
This was part of Unilever’s plan to start an ice cream conglomerate, forming Good Humor-Breyer’s in 1993, combining Good Humor, Breyer’s, Popsicle, Klondike, Dickie Dee and Kraft Ice Cream’s into one management.
The interesting thing about this for Choco Taco was at some point in this process, due to them being the manufacturer and already making most of the money anyway, Unilever purchased the rights to Choco Taco.
The reason they attached Choco Taco’s to Klondike was due to Klondike being the brand most known for novelty products, camps and ice cream trucks, which were the only place Choco Taco’s were sold at the time.
It wasn’t until 1996 that Choco Taco would go to retail for the first time.
That’s the history, but now figuring out why Klondike got rid of the product.
The first thing I did was check marketing/nutritional information.
One fact people aren’t aware of is in the US, companies selling sweets aren’t allowed to advertise to kids, unless meeting certain health specifications.
It was why in the 1980s, cereals reduced sugar heavily, due to them being visibly marketed towards kids.
It’s also why brands such as Hershey’s or M&M almost always feature adults eating their products and not kids, unless with adults.
An example of a popular product getting discontinued over this was Dunkaroo’s, which had a cartoon mascot and marketed itself almost exclusively with kids shows.
When brought back, Dunkaroo’s off’d the mascot and now markets mainly online to “90s kids”, versus actual kids.
Checked Choco Taco and found basic health info.
220 calories
8 grams of fat
Comparing that, Klondike bars are 170 calories, with 8 grams of fat.
That said though, Choco Taco’s are pretty standard, where products such as the Tollhouse Ice Cream sandwich are 380 calories per piece and way worse.
Choco Taco’s being a novelty, could be argued as being for kids, but I looked at that and no legal complaint has ever been filed.
Looking at everything, Choco Taco’s weren’t eliminated due to issues with health or legal.
Next is sales, which is hard to find, because Unilever doesn’t give financial disclosures on individual products.
The big issue I found was Choco Taco’s could have been a victim to COVID, where Klondike has a larger presence in schools, ice cream trucks, camps and places that aren’t traditional retail.
All of which struggled during COVID.
The next issue is the scarcity of freezer space in retail as a whole.
Unlike almost any other product category, ice cream/frozen items are limited in stores, due to lack of freezer space, where normal shelf space can be 50-100x more available in a store like Walmart or Costco.
Making it worse, certain items take priority, with frozen foods, traditional ice cream, frozen vegetables and other staple items getting that shelf space.
Choco Taco’s fall under novelty, which gets the smallest amount of retail space available in grocery stores.
Looking at all of this, it’s hard to find a clear cut reason, but my gut says Choco Taco’s were discontinued partly as a product of COVID and very few other places to fit it.
That being said though, I’m not convinced they’ll actually stop selling.
Choco Taco’s were a product that Unilever licensed out of the US, selling in Italy and Sweden under the brand name, Winner Taco.
They started selling them there in 1999, but discontinued in 2000, having only about 18 months on shelves.
They had a petition for over a decade and a social media campaign in 2014 to bring back Winner Taco’s, which worked and now are for sale.
The statement from the head of Klondike was also optimistic, where he just said it’s discontinued for now, but they’d think of ways to bring it back.
My gut feeling is this is similar to Winner Taco, Dunkaroo’s and Hostess snack cakes.
People think they are gone or they are gone, a nostalgia builds for them and they relaunch with some renewed public support.
So while the reason for discontinuing isn’t extremely clear, it’s clear that people complaining online can actually help.