On This Day in July, We Lost The Choco Taco Forever

Of all the discontinued food products out there – and there are thousands, if not tens or hundreds of thousands, of the things – few of them have left as much of a mark as the Choco Taco. Few also had as much of a sad decline. This sweet treat went from ice cream truck favorite, to frozen aisle dominator, to a shadow of its former self, to a whisper in the wind. 

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That whisper breathed its last on July 26, 2022 (which was, incidentally, the day before my 30th birthday – I knew that one felt a bit sadder for a reason, and not just because of the passage of time). Let’s throw it back to the early days of the Choco Taco and talk about where it all went wrong.

What Was The Choco Taco?

Most people will remember that, but in case you don’t, a short primer. The Choco Taco was arguably an early example of fusion food (in appearance, at least): Conceived in the early 1980s, it consisted of vanilla ice cream swirled with chocolate fudge, which was crammed into a waffle cone shell, and covered in chocolate and peanuts. Its portability was its key selling point, as well as its sheer novelty value. Oh, and its flavor. 

Choco Tacos first came out of the ice cream truck scene, but Unilever eventually got its hands on it and started distributing them under the Klondike brand. It continued that way for roughly four decades – and then 2022 rolled around, and the Choco Taco was discontinued.

Why?

When Klondike decided to pull the plug on the Choco Taco, it said in a statement to CNN Business that it had done so after “[experiencing] an unprecedented spike in demand across our portfolio and [having] to make very tough decisions to ensure availability of our full portfolio nationwide.” In short, it sounds like other products were outselling it in the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic, and had to divert resources to those. As expected, a lot of people were very unhappy. Another childhood favorite had fallen. 

And It Hasn’t Been Seen Since?

Not in its official form – but the concept of an ice cream taco has persisted. Last year, Taco Bell and Salt & Straw released The Tacolate, a waffle cone filled with cinnamon ancho chili ice cream, which came with either a Mango Jalapeño or Wildberry Cinnamon sauce. This taco, though, was both limited-time and limited-quantity, and since then it hasn’t been revived. Nor has the Klondike Choco Taco, and it doesn’t look like it’ll be appearing again anytime soon. Pour one out.