Howdy folks,

We are getting rid of Nutella.

Now, before you start throwing crepe batter at me, hear me out…

Yep, we know you love Nutella. Heck, we made about 40,000 crepes with Nutella in 2017 alone…that’s approximately 7207 pounds of gooey chocolate and hazelnut nom-nom goodness. 

But there’s a deep, dark secret that y’all may not be aware of: the second ingredient in Nutella is modified palm oil, which is what gives Nutella its silky, spreadable texture. As far as our one and only Planet Earth is concerned: palm oil sucks.

Why? The equivalent of 300 football fields of rainforests are deforested every hour to make way for palm oil plantations and demand is projected to double by 2030 and triple by 2050. Rainforests, on the other hand, are essential to our climate’s health and stability: sucking up climate-change-causing carbon dioxide, providing habitat for more than 10 million species of flora and fauna, and producing more than 20% of our world’s oxygen. There’s no way around it: palm oil is the enemy of the rainforest and Nutella is dependent on palm oil. And while Nutella and its parent company have made efforts to reduce their environmental impact, those words on the ingredient list just never sat easily with us. 

If you’re hip to the ways of the Pancake than you know we are on a mission to change the world by building a safer, healthier and more delicious foodshed. So while wildly popular, Nutella has been this unspoken black eye on our mission all along. Surprisingly, we have never gotten a single guest complaint about it. But we knew and we care. So what were we to do? Do we stay loyal to our Nutella-loving guests or remain committed to our mission? 

The great Alan Newman solved this riddle for us. You may know Alan as the co-founder of Magic Hat Brewery, Seventh Generation and Gardener’s Supply. Holy moly, right? We asked Alan, “Please, font of wisdom…help us?!?” Ask and ye shall receive: in a transmogrification of Yoda and Gandolf, Alan sniggled, “Make not the mistake in choosing the tyranny of the ‘or’, when the genius of the ‘and’ can be at hand.”  Preach on, brother!!! Our Nutella conundrum need not be a binary choice between our values OR our guests!  We can pursue our mission AND improve the tastes our guests have come to love. 

So, with those words in mind, we set out on a quest of Odyssean proportions. We would find a higher quality, BETTER TASTING, and much more sustainable chocolate hazelnut spread. We were nearly shipwrecked and left for lost several times over…and yet like Ernest Shackleton, we never gave up and eventually found our Elephant Island: this palm oil free chocolate hazelnut spread we now present to you, our eager crepe-eaters.

The second we passed this savior of a spread across our lips, we just…knew. We knew it was better. Richer. Nuttier. Rounder than Nutella….and as smooth as this blog post. And the icing on this “NEWtella” cake: it’s a more sustainable product because it does not depend on Palm Oil. No ingredients destroy the rainforest. And it wasn’t just the palm oil that concerned us about Nutella. Nutella also uses soy lecithin (from GMO soy) and vanillin, which is an artificial vanilla flavor used instead of real vanilla extract. Our new product contains no artificial flavors. This magical goop is better for the planet, better for the body, and better for the taste receptors.   

So for all you Nutella fans out there: #SorryNotSorry. We got rid of a product that many of you loved, cherished and some even bathed in….but the earth is grateful, and we think you’ll love this stuff too.

-Benjy Pancake