Whole Foods Reinstates Berry Chantilly Cake Slices After Outrage
The grocery chain reversed alterations to the customer-favorite recipe.
Get the recipe: Copycat Berry Chantilly Cake
If you’re a dessert lover, you may have caught wind of a cake commotion in the past couple of weeks. The saga was a roller coaster of emotions for many Whole Foods customers, but thanks to their outrage, this story has a happy ending. Let’s get you up to speed.
In 2002, Chaya Conrad developed a berry Chantilly cake recipe, inspired by one of her grandmother’s, for the Whole Foods location where she worked in New Orleans. From there, the cakes spread across Whole Foods locations in the South, and eventually nationwide. Over time, they became available as whole cakes, slices and cupcakes. Copycat recipes became popular, too.
The cakes gained something of a cult following. Some people have said on TikTok that they always serve a whole one as their birthday cake or even their wedding cake. Others treat themselves to a slice as a weekly ritual. Fans’ love for their favorite cake is passionate.
“Our friend group is enraptured by berry Chantilly cake to a feverish degree, as if it were the very essence of decadence itself,” TikTok user @anaisbecker_ wrote in a video. “Our obsession has reached a fervent pitch, with berry Chantilly cake becoming the sacred centerpiece of our sweetest moments, transforming each occasion into a grand celebration of pure, unadulterated bliss."
Then, on September 21, the bad news broke. Lisa Younes posted a video on TikTok claiming that Whole Foods was “discontinuing” her beloved berry Chantilly slices. She said when she went to the store for a slice of cake, there were none to be found. She asked an employee about it, and he told her Whole Foods was changing the recipe. He said the cakes now came frozen and without fresh berries. Younes’ video received one and a half million views.
Younes added that the price for a slice was increasing, which Zarinah Williams also claimed in her own video. Williams called the cake “a victim of shrinkflation,” claiming the new slice was half the original size.
According to Younes, the recipe for the whole cakes didn’t change, so she bought one and planned to slice it up and freeze it herself.
“Whole Foods, if you see this, I’m really, really disappointed. I think that all of America is disappointed, and you should reverse your decision,” Younes concluded.
Younes’ comment section became flooded with shocked, angry and even panicked comments. X posts tagged the chain in complaints, such as “you are ruining my life.”
A week later, Whole Foods clarified in a statement to USA TODAY that the cakes would not be discontinued in any format, but the recipe for the slices was indeed changing. The statement didn’t address Younes’ claim that the price was increasing.
“Previously, our Berry Chantilly by-the-slice cake program varied by store location,” the statement said. “We recently aligned the flavor profile, size, packaging, and price so customers will have the same high-quality experience in each of our stores.”
In an interview with The New York Times, Conrad remarked that this standardization made sense from a business standpoint, given that fresh, seasonal berries are not always available or priced consistently.
However, in the end, the online pressure worked: Whole Foods abandoned its plans to change the recipe.
“Based on feedback from our customers, we will reintroduce single slices of the Berry Chantilly cake that are the same as the classic our customers know and love,” a Whole Foods spokesman said in an email to The New York Times on September 30.
Whole Foods repeated these reassurances in comments on TikTok.
By the time you’re reading this, the old-fashioned slices should be back on shelves — although, what “classic” means remains to be seen.
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