Mondelēz’s Chips Ahoy! debuts new recipe for the classic cookie

Dive Brief:

• Mondelēz International is updating the recipe for its $1 billion chocolate chip cookie brand Chips Ahoy!, the snacking giant said in a statement. The new offering will reach store shelves this month and be available nationwide in April. New packaging will highlight the recipe improvements. 
• The new cookie includes chocolate chips featuring a higher cacao content and a higher concentration of Madagascar vanilla extract resulting in a “well-rounded chocolate flavor while reducing bitterness.” The new Chips Ahoy! is the biggest innovation to the original cookie in 10 years, according to Mondelēz.
• Mondelēz and Ferrero are among a few companies that have changed the recipe to a handful of their brands in recent years to keep them fresh and relevant as consumers are inundated with snacking options. Mondelēz previously made changes to Milka, while Ferrero updated Butterfinger.

Dive Insight:

Changing a recipe for a popular brand is always a risky move, potentially upsetting die-hard consumers and casting negative publicity on the product. Few are as well-known as the launch of New Coke in the 1980s by Coca-Cola. 

But Mondelēz is confident that altering the ingredient mix slightly for its 61-year-old classic chocolate chip cookie will resonate with consumers.

A higher cocoa and Madagascar vanilla extract content is likely to result in a richer cookie that will generate buzz, especially among younger individuals. It also will help Chips Ahoy! stand out in the crowded sweets space, crucial with consumers snacking more than ever and having more choices available when they do. 

“In a category where taste is king and many chocolate chip cookies look the same, we wanted to challenge ourselves to step up our quality while staying true to what our fans already love,” Sabrina Sierant, senior director for Chips Ahoy!, said in a statement. “This was a daunting task, we heard time and again ‘Don’t mess with the cookies we love,’ but we knew we could bring Chips Ahoy! fans an even higher quality cookie that maintains all the things they already loved.”

Sierant said it took more than 60 recipes, and five thousand hours in the kitchen, to create a cookie she said tasted “just right” to consumers. The new and “MMMproved” recipe has a “richer cookie flavor and creamy chocolate taste featuring the right amount of chocolate chips,” according to Mondelēz. It also uses a mixing process that creates “just the right cookie texture.”

Chips Ahoy! is a dominant force in the chocolate chip cookie space, with more than a 53% share of market, the snacking company said.

In recent years, Chips Ahoy! has attracted broad interest from Gen Z consumers who are looking for a sweet indulgent treat. Its popularity among younger individuals, coupled with a rising interest in snacks among the broader population, has made Chips Ahoy! one of Mondelēz’s fastest-growing brands. Sales have been increasing “double digits” annually, with teens responsible for the biggest share of that growth.

Chips Ahoy! was invented in 1963 by Nabisco. For years, Mondelēz, which now owns Chips Ahoy! along with other brands such as Ritz and Oreo, supported the brand in stores with promotions and displays. Sales were “humming along,” Tanya Berman, senior vice president of Mondelēz’s biscuit business, told Food Dive last year.

But around 2019, and during the early days of the COVID-19 pandemic, the company took a deeper look at the brand that was flying off the shelf and realized it could do more to reach consumers by expanding it into other flavors and formats. In 2022 Morning Consult named Chips Ahoy! a Top 25 Gen Z brand.

Sierant told CNN that despite the changes to the ingredient mix, Mondelēz has “no plans to change” its suggested retail price and pack sizes for the brand.