Lindt 70% Chocolate Recipe change

I have been a HUGE fan of Lindt 70% "Excellence" dark chocolate for years. In my opinion it is the standard for dark bittersweet chocolate. In the last few weeks Lindt has changed both their manufacturing location (to the USA, from France) and altered the recipe. The result, a HUGE disappointment!!! If any of you are fans of dark chocolate this is truly a "dark" (no pun intended) day. For me, it's back to square one to find a reasonably priced bittersweet chocolate on a par with the old Lindt.

btw...There is already a "Bring back Lindt's 70 percent original recipe" page on Facebook. Perhaps joining the group will convince Lindt to keep the old recipe available in the USA.

jerry: a quick google search didnt pull up anything about a recipe change, and i wont go on facebook... do you know how they changed the excellence bar without, presumably, changing it from 70%? the lindt site still offers it, and says nothing about changing the recipe. how does it taste different to you?? thanks, justjoan

googling "lindt excellence recipe" gets me this from lindtusa.com's faq:

Why is there a new recipe for the Excellence 70% Cocoa bar?
We revised the Excellence 70% Cocoa recipe based on consumer research results that show the new recipe is preferred due to the smoother, less bitter taste. We received overwhelmingly positive consumer feedback about this new recipe and taste. The new recipe is intended to balance a smooth dark chocolate flavor with a rich and creamy texture. The new Excellence 70% Cocoa bar is available at Lindt Chocolate Shops, LindtUSA.com, and retailers nationwide.
We've stopped producing bars with the previous 70% Cocoa recipe; however there is a limited amount still available for purchase on LindtUSA.com. If you have any further questions, please contact our Customer Care department.

I couldn't find the Facebook page. Can you link to it?

I don't have a Facebook page, but I'm at a loss why someone wouldn't want to go to a Facebook page.

Bring Back Lindt's 70% Original Recipe on facebook

gleam wrote:Bring Back Lindt's 70% Original Recipe on facebook

With only 29 "likes," I'm beginning to see why they changed the recipe . . .

Jerry D wrote:For me, it's back to square one to find a reasonably priced bittersweet chocolate on a par with the old Lindt.

I never had the Lindt 70% bar, but I rarely get to Trader Joe's without picking up a Valrhona 71% bar. Reasonably priced, I always have one (or part of one) in my house for snacking.

The "New Recipe" Lindt 70% bar contains soya lecithin. The original does not. The new bar says "Smooth Dark" on the bottom of the package, while the original said "Intense Dark". The new bar tastes like creamy, bland plastic. The original bar was pure dark chocolate perfection, and I am irked that it is going away. I contacted Lindt via their website after first seeing the "New Recipe" bar in a local store. They sent a letter explaining the change (same verbiage as on the website), along with one 85% and one 90% bar. Those two products are decent, but the original 70% had the perfect balance of chocolate intensity and sweetness that the 85 and 90 cannot match. I thought the original 70% bar was one of Lindt's best sellers based on the huge increase in the number of stores that began carrying it in recent years. If a consumer wants the bland creaminess of the New Recipe, why would they not simply purchase a 50% bar, or a Hershey bar, or any number of other bland chocolate products already on the market?! Why screw up something that works perfectly, has a devoted following, and is UNIQUE in the chocolate world? Unfortunately, Lindt has ceased production of the original 70% bar, and most stores already have the new bar on the shelves. I've been to 20+ local grocery, retail and drug stores in the Raleigh/Durham, NC area and bought every one of the originals I could find (125 so far). They are sealed in plastic bags and tucked away from heat and light in hopes of preserving their glorious flavor as long as possible. I figure that I have one year of choclate bliss remaining before I am forced to move on to some other product. But I doubt I'll ever find anything quite the same.

jrb6060 wrote:I've been to 20+ local grocery, retail and drug stores in the Raleigh/Durham, NC area and bought every one of the originals I could find (125 so far). They are sealed in plastic bags and tucked away from heat and light in hopes of preserving their glorious flavor as long as possible. I figure that I have one year of choclate bliss remaining before I am forced to move on to some other product.

Although as a fellow dark chocolate lover it hurts to read about someone's favorite bar disappearing, this is frickin awesome.

I made a call to Lindt in the USA, the first person answering the phone said there were a lot of unhappy people calling in about the change. I was then given over to Marketing who said, quite to the contrary, they've received nothing but positive responses about the change in recipe, and that the taste test showed the new recipe was the winner. They wanted to send me some coupons for free product, I laughed told them they didn't have anything anymore I wanted. I said had they performed the taste tests with their current customer base they would have come to a different conclusion. I agree with one poster, the new recipe is without taste! It is bland and the only notes or aroma I could detect was that of vanilla (and somewhat aromatically reminiscent of the old B-B-Bat candy, banana flavor) - I don't think Lindt gets it, dark chocolate is meant to be somewhat bitter and certainly intense; the new product is indeed, as one person has said, not much different then a Hershey bar. I wish them (Lindt) luck, I can only hope the sales are off and they bring the old bar back (and fire the lying Marketing person). The old recipe was the best dark chocolate on the market, hands-down. By the way Green and Blacks Organic 70% is a pretty good replacement - best price is at, of all places, Wal-Mart.

i'm going to try the new 70%... i usually get the 85% but remember the old 70% being good as well. i hope the new recipe is not as bad as everyone says it is

The new Lindt 70% smooth chocolate bars are such a disappointment. I've been eating the Intense Dark 70% for more than 10 years -- and none other! Now the taste is waxy and plastic tasting, plus it's sweeter than the original. It tastes like any other American chocolate. It reminds me of the new coke debacle. Hopefully, if enough people complain, it will result in a change back to the original Lindt 70% (like the change back to original Coke)!

Does anyone know where there might be a stockpile of the original Intense Dark 70% Bars (the original)??

This is the first topic I've seen on LTH in which as many as three posters have only a single post on the forums, here. Hmmm...

I joined this forum and posted my comment because I was browing on-line for comments on this Lindt topic and saw that there were quite a few comments here. I don't usually join forums, but this Lindt thing has really made me crazy. I'm not just any chocolate addict; I WAS a Lindt 70% addict and now can't find anything close to the old recipe. (So, now I have 2 posts -- albeit, on the same topic.)

Thanks. I had a feeling this topic was popping up in search engines when people (i.e. non-LTHers) look for info on the Lindt change...

Welcome!

ruthackerman wrote:Does anyone know where there might be a stockpile of the original Intense Dark 70% Bars (the original)??

jrb6060's house?

Well, at least this explains why I haven't enjoyed the Lindt 70% bars I've gotten lately. I thought maybe there was something wrong with my taste buds -- maybe part of the reaction to stress recently. It never occurred to me that they'd change the recipe.

I like the "JRB6060's house" response. Too funny! Good thing we don't know where s/he lives or s/he might have unexpected guests.

I phoned Lindt and also submitted my comments on-line through their website to tell them how much I hate their new recipe. I encourage others to do the same. Can't hurt and might actually help if enough people start complaining directly to them.

Here's some background on where the new bars are almost assuredly made:

http://www.concordmonitor.com/article/l ... late-plant

So glad to have found my like-minded, Lindt 70% intense dark, guys and gals!

I was writing my annual holiday letter, starting with my displeasure (to say it mildly) of the 70% change, and how I've auditioned dozens of possible replacements, only to find nothing I like as well, when I stopped to check my mail and google alerts (including one I set up on Lindt 70% intense dark months ago.)

I was starting to think I was all alone in my sorrow, thus so happy to have found y'all today. (Prompted me to join this discussion, even though that is out of character for me.)

I agree with all the comments about the taste of the inferior new product. And I sent in an email to ask for the old one back, as suggested. I do wish it would go the way the new coke did. But in case not, the only two I have found that might perhaps have to do are Green and Black organic 70% and Godiva 72%, but really neither do I like nearly as well.

What more can we do to express "Please bring intense dark back." And, since they probably won't, do any of y'all have any that you like even nearly as well?

Can't help but wonder if it's not doing so well in the marketplace. I was at HomeGoods tonight, and they had two whole shelves of the new 70% Smooth Dark. Kind of odd for a store that mostly has remainders, overstock, seconds, and slightly damaged goods.

Has anyone tried Cote D' Or Brand? The Noir 70% cacao and the 86% Noir Brut are both great for satisfying my dark chocolate needs. They used to sell it at Family Fruit Market, but I haven't checked lately. It's available at Amazon for sure.

Went in to the local Garden Fresh market and found about ten of the old Intense Dark Lindt 70%. They had a ton of the new recipe right behind them. Luckily when I grabbed the entire stack I had the patience to check ALL the labels. I was dissappointed that only ten were "old recipe".

My quest continues for a replacement 70% bar .

fyi, it appears canada is not getting the reformulated 70 bar. The big grocery store in windsor has tons of the old bar and no sign of the new one.

1. Many stores ( Fresh Farms on Devon among them} still have the intense 70% dark .
2. I was in Paris a few weeks ago and to my chagrin found out that they now sell both the intense and the "smooth" dark 70% version.
I do not know why because this new deviation does not correspond at all to the French taste.

alain40 wrote:1. Many stores ( Fresh Farms on Devon among them} still have the intense 70% dark .
2. I was in Paris a few weeks ago and to my chagrin found out that they now sell both the intense and the "smooth" dark 70% version.
I do not know why because this new deviation does not correspond at all to the French taste.

The only reason I'm not sure if canada is getting it is because this is a very high volume store (near the US/CA border) and the Lindt was on an endcap. It's quite possible that they will be getting it at some point, which would be a shame.

So, would someone out there in France (or anywhere else they are plentiful) consider sending some to us poor saps in the U.S.?

Here are just a few suggestions for those who miss the "old recipe" Lindt bars.

More and more brands of "gourmet" chocolate are available every day. I was at Treasure Island in Wilmette this morning and I counted five brands (Sharffen Berger, Newman's Own, Valor, Santander, Green and Black) selling 70 percent dark chocolate in addition to the Lindt bars labeled "New Recipe". stevez mentions Cote d'Or brand, and other brands of 70 percent dark chocolate for sale at Amazon include Chocolove, Theo, and Rapunzel. Maybe one of those brands will have the taste you're looking for.

Amazon has a couple of items which MAY be what you're looking for, but may not. They sell 12-packs of 3.5-ounce bars (click here) and 24-packs of 1.2-ounce bars (click here. Both are marked "Product of France" on the listing, but who knows whether or not they are substituting the American-made "new recipe" stuff. You can ask but you may need to buy some to be sure.

LeA wrote:So, would someone out there in France (or anywhere else they are plentiful) consider sending some to us poor saps in the U.S.?

It's not hard to find online stores based overseas who will ship to the U.S. Big American websites like Amazon and eBay have overseas divisions (both have .fr versions based in France and .ch versions based in Switzerland) and nothing is stopping you from placing an order through their overseas website, which will be shipped from there back to the States. You can also use the foreign versions of any of the major search engines to locate other dealers in those countries. If you don't speak the language shown, you may find an option to switch to a display in English, or functions like the Google Toolbar may offer to do it for you.

HTH

Just checked back in after a few months away to see if there were any promising updates on the Lindt 70 subject. Somebody posted on an Amazon review that he saw the old recipe "re-appear on shelves" in November, but I have seen no such thing here in NC. I'm glad to read that my previous post generated a few witty replies, and I can report that my stash (once 125 bars in October) is now down to 90. They are disappearing at a rate of 2.5 per week between three of us (mostly me). All remaining bars have expiration dates of July or August 2011, so we'll see how the Intense Dark flavors hold out. So far so good. They are stored, 20 per bag, in heavy duty ziploc freezer bags, and sit at room temperature in a cardboard box. I'm afraid to try the freezer, but am considering placing one bag in the fridge to prolong freshness. The thought of altering the flavor in any way makes me hesitant to do anything. I've read that the shelf life of chocolate is typically 1 year, which is why I only bought 125, when I could've easily found many more (WalMart, K-Mart, Harris Teeter, Kroger and nearly every drug store in NC carried them). Any suggestions from knowledgable readers on the subject of chocolate preservation would be appreciated.

So sad to see business decisions made for reasons of quantity (profits) over quality (ingredients, flavor). Especially given that this decision destroyed a profitable product with a very loyal following. Let's all hope the Lindt experiment fails and that the original recipe will return. Of some consolation are reports I've read, here at LTH and elsewhere, that the Intense Dark recipe is still sold in Europe and Canada. I have a tennis pro friend in Switzerland, and when my stash dips below 20, I'm sending him an email to go shopping for me. With the shipping costs, it will certainly be more expensive than WalMart ($2.18 per bar), but few things are as important as chocolate.

Hi,

I personally would not be very alarmed at eating chocolage beyond the 'best by date.' Chocolate can hold its own for a long time. I know it may not always look its best, though I am sure someone can respond how to store it optimally.

Regards,