This classic ice cream flavor is on the outs — and diehard fans are devastated

Here’s the scoop: No one’s melting for this classic ice cream flavor anymore.

Chocolate chip ice cream — once a beloved freezer staple — could soon become obsolete.

It didn’t even crack the top five flavors favored by consumers, falling to eighth place in a list of America’s favorite ice cream, per a 2024 survey from the International Dairy Foods Association. Just two years ago, chocolate chip ranked fifth among consumers but incredibly low in sales, signaling a national souring for the scoop.

“Chocolate chip used to be a flavor we produced constantly,” Caroline Crowley, a communications specialist for the Madison, Wisconsin, manufacturer Babcock Dairy Plant, told The New York Times.

“Now it’s seasonal.”

In fact, it hasn’t been considered a principal flavor in over a decade for the nearly 75-year-old company, which took nearly five months to sell out of 110 gallons of chocolate chip ice cream, but only three months to sell the same volume of chocolate chip cookie dough, which is available year-round.

Similarly, Texan creamery, Blue Bell, described chocolate chip ice cream as “a market-specific flavor,” telling The Times that the flavor fell out of favor as a classic in the early 2000s.

While Breyers and Perry’s still produce chocolate chip ice cream, Times reporter Matt Richtel scoured frozen food aisles and local ice cream shops in Boulder, Colorado, in the hopes of finding the humble flavor.

Perhaps fueled by a national distaste for the frozen treat — per CNN, the number of gallons consumed by Americans has been on the decline due to health concerns and the proliferation of low-calorie options — or a unanimous shift in palette preferences, Richtel’s hunt for a chocolate chip pint seemed futile.

While standing in the frozen aisle at a local grocer, chocolate chip ice cream lover Mark Sawyer, 68, told The Times he hasn’t seen the dessert as often and has resigned to consuming vanilla — which, he noted “goes well with rum.”

Meanwhile, Ani Ward, 8, who was perusing the frozen dessert aisle with her father, Sean Ward, is a harsh critic of chocolate chip ice cream. While she didn’t know the last time she had tasted the flavor, she declared: “It’s not the worst, but it’s not that good.”

Perhaps those with a sweet tooth are gravitating towards the extravagant flavors — those brimming with fudgy chunks, gooey swirls and buzzy names — thereby pushing out legacy classics, like the humble chocolate chip variety.

Safeway shopper and former chocolate chip ice cream fan Joe Mruk, 39, told The Times his old favorite is “not here” anymore, so he’s traded it for Blue Bell’s Cookie Two Step — globs of “chocolate crème-filled cookies” and a dash of brown sugar folded into a vanilla base, akin to chocolate chip cookie dough ice cream — describing it as his “jam.”

Oregon-based creamery Tillamook reported a dip in sales for staple scoops like vanilla, which, from 2018 to 2022, saw a 6.4% decline while the creamery’s chocolate chip flavor slipped 22%. The company told The Times it is focused on crafting innovative scoops: Brownie Batter, German Chocolate Cake, Dark Chocolate Cookies & Cream and Chocolate Hazelnut.

“There’s a whole aisle now,” Sean told The Times, thinking back to his childhood in the ’80s and ’90s, when there was a small pool of ice cream flavors.

“Every time I go over there I’m, like, ‘What am I buying now?’”