Chocoholics Rule!
Premium chocolates in private label include Aldi’s Choceur single-origin Madagascar, Loblaw’s President’s Choice Mini-Suisse nougat candies and Safeway Select white chocolate blueberry bar. Below: Weis co-brands specialty nuts like Kettle Blistered BBQ peanuts.
Private brands get fancy with candy – and nuts and snacks.
Chocolate lovers can rejoice, thanks to private label. They can enjoy luxury chocolate at far less than luxury prices, if they know where to find it. One of those places is Aldi, Batavia, IL, where a wide range of imported chocolate items are available, mostly under the Choceur and Moser Roth brands.
Some of the Choceur items are single-origin chocolate bars, along the lines of single-source coffees at a number of retailers. Others include raisins and nuts and coffee and cream bars. The Moser Roth line offers milk chocolate and milk chocolate caramel bars, but mostly dark chocolate – 70% cocoa, 85% cocoa, and with mint, orange and almonds, and even chili. Besides all those, there are Chocolate Swiss assorted chocolate squares.
Although it’s a limited assortment chain, stressing bargain prices, Aldi has gone all out to lend a touch of luxury to its chocolate offerings, and has become something of a legend among chocolate lovers. On a blog called simply Chocolate Ratings, one nameless chocoholic had good things to say about one of the Choceur lines:
I recently tried their three single origin chocolates. A great bargain at $1.49 per 100 gram bar. If you are partial to Lindt you will most likely enjoy these. They are all tempered to a perfect snap. My only quibble is the use of vanillin rather than vanilla extract; but, at that price I really can’t complain. (Vanillin is a man-made compound, while real vanilla is made up of complex multiple compounds from vanilla pods that require expensive processing.)
Aldi’s Venezuelan 55% dark chocolate is a very creamy, easy to eat bar. This would be an excellent choice for someone new to dark bars, as it is mild but still interesting. The 65% from Madagascar is more complex with fruity notes, a wonderful creaminess, and a great chocolate aroma.
From Ecuador, we have a 75% dark that is so luscious you would never guess it’s 75%. There’s almost no bitterness, even though this qualifies as a bittersweet bar. Perhaps, that stems from the lack of complexity, but, it’s still a great option for the price.
Another blogger named Andrew, at a Chicago area site called Chowhound, Just thought I’d give fellow ‘hounds a heads-up that you can get really inexpensive Swiss-quality (well, it’s actually from Austria) milk chocolate from the Aldi chain of supermarkets. They sell 300g bars (they’re like 3x the size of standard bars) for about $1.79. It’s made especially for Aldi, named ‘Choceur’ and comes in a blue wrapper. And the stuff is nearly as good as Lindt and the other good brands from Switzerland. Get while the gettin’ is good!
Target, Minneapolis, MN, was the first to get into premium chocolate with its Choxie line, but now the cheap chic discount chain has a lot of competition from other store brands and may have even scaled back its own offerings. Safeway, Pleasanton, CA, and Loblaw’s, Toronto, ON, are two supermarket giants that are going the import route to appeal to consumers who are big on chocolate.
Under the Safeway Select brand, chocolate fanciers can find such specialties as milk chocolate with niblet hazelnuts, dark chocolate with lemon & pepper, 55% cacao and 78% cacao extra dark chocolate, and even white chocolate with blueberries, all in 3.5 oz bars similar to Aldi’s offerings. Loblaw’s goes even further under its President’s Choice brand, with everything from Mini Suisse dark chocolate candies with honey almond nougat to White Chocolate Covered Sponge Toffee with Milk Chocolate Drizzles and seasonal novelty items like chocolate Santas.
Weis, Sunbury, PA, appeals to more mainstream chocoholics at the check out line with candy bars that include milk chocolate, plain or with truffles, crispy rice, caramel or almonds; and dark chocolate with raspberry cream filling – that last is obviously positioned against Ghirardelli, which is to America what Lindt is to Switzerland; but the brand markets its version as single pieces in bags. But Weis is also doing some really unique things in salty snacks.
In a joint venture with a regional supplier, Pardoe’s Perky Peanuts, the chain has come out with a line of “Kettle Blistered” peanuts – salted, unsalted and BBQ. “Extra crunchy, all-natural peanuts, hand-cooked in 100% peanut oil, exploding with a savory barbeque seasoning,” a blurb on the front of the package reads. On the back, Robert and Jonathan Weis sing the praises of their partner as a “family owned business that shares our commitment to deliver exceptional quality and nutritious foods to our customers.”
Novel salty and sweet snacks abound at Target, which has made a point of offering really unique items under its Archer Farms brand. Lots of retailers carry multiple variations of peanuts and cashews, for example, but Target offers honey cinnamon, roasted and wasabi soy almonds as well as the raw kind. Both regular and baked versions of Buffalo Wing & Sea Salt potato chips are available, along with Maui Onion, Jalapeno and others. Cheddar Ranch and Honey Mustard pretzels? Target’s got them. Trail mixes include Cinnamon Apple Pie, Pumpkin Spice, Sweet Cajun and A Handful of Everything.
You can find tortilla chips in private label just about anywhere you go, and at a lot of places you can find blue corn and even organic versions – but under its O Organics brand, Safeway offers organic blue corn tortilla chips with sesame. Shoppers Drug Mart markets organic crystallized ginger under its Nativa brand. At Aldi, Batavia, IL, under the Simms brand, there are pepperoni and turkey sausage snack bites. Cashew crunch candy is part of the Market Basket line at Giant Eagle, Pittsburgh, PA. But others stress healthy snacks, like Power Blend trail mix at CVS, Woonsocket, RI; and Fiber Max nutrition bars at A&P, Montvale, NJ (See more about candy and snack trends in Cover Story and Top 20 Drug Chain Report.).
