Product Review: Whole Foods Grind-Your-Own Chocolate Peanut Butter

On a whim, I recently bought a small container of Whole Foods' grind-your-own chocolate peanut butter. Why, you might ask?

Why not?

At my Whole Foods -- and maybe this is the standard -- the grind-your-own chocolate peanut butter uses vegan, gluten-free chocolate chips (hooray!). The balance in the machine appears to be mostly peanuts with a handful of chocolate chips -- you can see there is chocolate in there, but it doesn't look like nearly enough to produce anything chocolatey.

But, when I hit the start button on the machine, the peanut butter that came out was a lovely dark brown.

The peanut butter itself isn't overwhelmingly chocolate-flavored, but there are distinct chocolate notes -- in fact it's moderately chocolatey (unless you're a dedicated choco-holic) which is nice for a small I-want-something-different treat (especially on banana chips!). The grind for the machines I used was set to create smooth peanut butter, which meant that however many chocolate chips I got were well-incorporated. It's definitely less chocolate-flavored than something like Nutella or the chocolate peanut butters by Peanut Butter & Co.

The price: reasonable at $3.99/lb -- the same price as the other grind-your-own nut butters (almond, peanut butter, and honey-roasted peanut butter) on the day I visited.

Would I buy this again? Possibly. While I love chocolate & peanut butter (when I'm in the mood for either), this is an indulgence as I don't see a practical use in my life for chocolate peanut butter on any regular basis. I can mix chocolate into peanut butter on my own, if I really want it right this minute, and I prefer almond and sunflower seed butters. I like that it's vegan and gluten-free (some chocolate chips aren't). I like that this peanut butter can be made ground fresh and bought in whatever quantity I desire.

But, those probably aren't enough things to cause me to run back to Whole Foods as soon as I'm done with the chocolate peanut butter I currently have, or to push me to purchase more at any point in the near future.