Reese’s vs. Trader Joe’s: The Unlikely Peanut Butter Cup Smack Down
Plus, a case for the quesadilla.
Reese’s vs. Trader Joe’s: An Unlikely Public Battle
How has it come to this? The heir to the Reese’s legacy, toe-to-toe with Hershey. On the sideline, Trader Joe’s tosses fuel on the fire. How can the peanut butter cup cause so much drama in the chocolate world?
Let’s have a look at where it started.
Brad Reese, grandson of Reese’s Peanut Butter Cups’ inventor, posted a public letter on LinkedIn, lambasting Hershey for moving away from pure ingredients. In his words, milk chocolate and peanut butter have given way to compound coatings and peanut‑butter‑style crèmes – going by the comments, many agree.
Hershey quickly hit back in what can only be called a half-hearted PR swirl:
As we’ve grown and expanded the Reese’s product line, we make product recipe adjustments that allow us to make new shapes, sizes and innovations that Reese’s fans have come to love and ask for, while always protecting the essence of what makes Reese’s unique and special: the perfect combination of chocolate and peanut butter.
The strategic placement of “essence” suggests that Hershey has a fairly loose definition of “chocolate” and “peanut butter.”
A quick aside: I don’t think Hershey has used quality ingredients for a while, but presumably it must have gotten worse. Going solely by memory, I seem to recall Reese’s chocolate being less than stellar, while the peanut butter was passable. The latter is no longer the case. More about that in the taste test below.
This is where Trader Joe’s decided to jump in, with an update to their peanut butter cup product descriptions:
Other purveyors of peanut butter cups fill theirs with all kinds of “extraneous” ingredients. Ours are free of such things. We eschew artificial flavors and preservatives, as well as colors other than those derived from natural sources. We’re quite certain they taste better our way.
Them’s fighting words, and I can only think of one way to squash the beef…
A Taste Test
For a one-to-one comparison, we pinned the miniature milk chocolate cups against each other. A quick visit to Safeway proved that Hershey wasn’t exaggerating when they talked about their “expanded” Reese’s product line. The picture below shows about a quarter of Reese’s varieties, and that does not include the seasonal picks. There were no fewer than four types of miniatures to pick from. In the larger shelves, there were even more.
Trader Joe’s – TJ amongst friends – has two: miniature milk chocolate and dark chocolate cups.
How do they compare, then, TJ and Reese’s? Let’s break it down, start to finish.
TJ’s cups look like chocolate. They’re smooth but imperfect, giving them a hand-dipped veneer. Not that they are hand-dipped, but y’know – at least they put in an effort.
Reese’s cups fare, for the lack of a better word, poorly. The color is vaguely gray-tinted, and the top looks to be collapsing. Note how the wax is peeling off, too. It’s the uncanny valley of chocolate.
Slice the cups open, and Reese’s falls apart, figuratively and literally.
TJ looks like what you’d want a peanut butter cup to look like. The chocolate is uniformly draped, and the filling has the color and consistency of peanut butter. That shouldn’t be a cause for celebration – it should be the lowest common denominator. Compared to Reese’s, though, it’s night and day.
I don’t even know… Reese’s cups actually do collapse into themselves, and the dried-out peanut butter has a weird beige hue.
Flavor-wise, it’s a quick knockout. TJ tastes like it’s advertised: chocolate and peanut butter, and that’s it. Maybe not the best chocolate and peanut butter I’ve ever had, but quite good for something mass-produced. Reese’s tastes as artificial as Brad Reese claimed. Dry and old.
The Winner!
Trader Joe’s! But you already knew that.
What Should Have Been the Winner!
In a fair world, Sun Cups – a nut-free peanut butter cup alternative from Olympia – would take it home. They rocked. They also went out of business a little while ago, so alas…
Justin’s isn’t a bad substitute, though it’s also worth checking out your local chocolatier, who likely has something that surplants all of the aforementioned picks.
Carmelo’s Tacos’ Quesadilla
There is a widely held misconception that a quesadilla is a taco’s banal sibling, one often relegated to the kids’ menu or placed next to the burger. A dish that many restaurants do very little with, opting instead to toss some cheese between a couple of tortillas and then call it the day – child’s play.
That quick-and-dirty method might be prevalent, but look no further than Carmelo’s Tacos for proof that it’s not the be-all and end-all. Here you can find how elaborate a quesadilla can be, even in its simplest form.
It comes down to the basics, and Carmelo’s doesn’t toss in cheese willy-nilly; instead, they sear it on the grill before folding it into a tortilla. It gives the palate a sweeter, caramelized zest, embellished by the accompanying avocado-forward salsa verde.
The campechano – asada, chrizo, and potatoes – is a good protein-forward pick, though I’m partial to the mushrooms, mixed with guajillo chile and garlic. A flavor bomb and a half that’s slightly spicy, but not overwhelmingly so – more of a tickle than a kick. Worth noting, too, is how finely and uniformly the vegetables are cut. You’re not going to get a three-inch pepper slice mixed with a tiny dice of onion. I know that sounds minor, but it’s not. We might not talk a lot about the quesadilla’s mouthfeel, yet Carmelo’s makes it a necessary point of topic. Consistent prep work creates consistent flavors – that’s my drop of philosophy for today.
Finally, the tortillas themselves: Go to one of Carmelo’s locations, and you can watch them prepare the masa right in front of you: flattened and grilled for ten seconds to give the tortillas a slightly crispy bite. It doesn’t get much fresher than that.
Package it all together, and this is a quesadilla that can stand up to any burrito and taco. Lest there be any doubt, when you get a quesadilla that is made with this care, it will be anything but banal.
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