The Choco Taco, a beloved American treat, is dead. Where is it?

American ice cream lovers suffered a major blow this week when Unilever confirmed rumors that it was discontinuing its Klondike Choco Taco bar, a favorite on candy trucks and in freezers at supermarkets for nearly 40 years. But the Choco Taco is just the latest in a long line of casualties over the past two years, as major food companies have adapted to inflation and supply shortages by adjusting their product lines. /p>

"We have experienced an unprecedented increase in demand across our entire portfolio and have had to make some very difficult decisions to ensure the availability of our entire portfolio nationwide,” the Klondike Twitter account wrote on Monday. "model.dotcomrendering.pageElements.RichLinkBlockElement" class="dcr-1mfia18"/>

The Choco Taco, a vanilla ice cream core topped with peanuts and crunchy chocolate and wrapped in a shell in the shape of a sugar cone, was particularly appreciated by connoisseurs for the way it was was possible to get all the elements in one bite instead of sharding like with the Good Humor Drumstick.

Some mourners on Twitter admitted that hadn't eaten a Choco Taco since they were kids, but the pain was real. Senator Chris Murphy of Connecticut announced that he was "introducing legislation to invoke the Defense Production Act to compel the continued manufacture of Choco Tacos". Alexis Ohanian, founder of Reddit, offered to buy the rights to Choco Taco from Unilever "and prevent it from melting away from the childhoods of future generations".

Ice cream London-based Unilever's portfolio is extensive: it also includes Ben & Jerry's, Magnum, Good Humor, Breyer's and Talenti - as well as Popsicle. Coca-Cola, which has an equally large beverage portfolio, justified its 2020 discontinuation of Tab diet sodas and Odwalla juices by explaining that these products did not perform well. "The goal is to drive impact and growth," said Cath Coetzer, the company's global head of innovation and marketing operations, at the time. "It's about continuing to follow the consumer and being very intentional in deciding which of our brands are most deserving of our investments and resources, and also taking the difficult but important steps to identify products that are losing relevance. and therefore should be out of the wallet.”

Similarly, many restaurant chains have streamlined their menus during the pandemic, including Denny's, Applebee's, Ihop, McDonald's and Taco Bell , to maintain their profit margins in the face of increased supply and labor costs.

A Klondike spokeswoman noted in an e- However, there had been a constant turnover of products in the company's range: last year the Klondike Donut was taken off store shelves with little fanfare and eventually replaced by a new range of shakes and of cones. The Klondike Donut, however, had no the famous status of the Choco Taco, which had, according to a 2016 story in Eater, inspired several unlikely legends about its creation as well as high-end imitations of celebrity chefs, including Dominique Ansel, the inventor of the cronut.