Jeremy Stein - Journal

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I should have listened to my uncle

My uncle likes to tell a joke based on his experience in the cultured milk products industry (or whatever they call it):

Question: What’s the difference between small-curd and large-curd cottage cheese?
Answer: In small-curd, the flies are cut into pieces.

I consoled myself in that I eat yogurt more often than cottage cheese. In fact, just tonight, I pulled out a blueberry yogurt from the refrigerator for a snack while working at the computer. During that snack, there was a moment in which I asked myself, “why would a blueberry crunch?” The answer to that question involved yogurt spewed onto the desk.

On the right is the partially-consumed yogurt, with one “blueberry” set aside. Click on the picture for a slightly crunched close-up of the offender.

I wish I knew who supplied Aldi’s yogurt. I have a few complaints I’d like to voice. First of all, Japanese beetles (I think that’s what it is) are not listed on the ingredients. And furthermore, the yogurt container is clearly labelled as “live and active”, which the beetle certainly was not.

November 10, 2004 19 Comments.

19 Comments

  1. Tara replied:

    Number three on my list of reasons why not to eat fruit-on-the-bottom yogurt.

    Yours resolved never to kiss again…

    November 10th, 2004 at 10:26 pm. Permalink.

  2. stefan replied:

    I wouldn’t do this because it goes against my Christian faith….and seems, based on your site, that you’re probably like me – but, someone else would probably be calling their lawyer already and checking into “pain and suffering” for about a million bucks.

    Oh, sidenote – how did you do the sum digits below to get rid of spambots? Is that code available anywhere? :)

    November 11th, 2004 at 10:27 pm. Permalink.

  3. Shannon replied:

    Gross.

    November 12th, 2004 at 4:43 pm. Permalink.

  4. Shannon replied:

    Basically, everyone is so grossed out by this that noone visits this website anymore (except me) and noone even writes on it anymore….
    HELLOOOO…Hellooo…hello….(echo fades out, lights dim)

    November 30th, 2004 at 10:31 pm. Permalink.

  5. Shannon replied:

    I also notice that your clock is not correct on this.

    November 30th, 2004 at 10:32 pm. Permalink.

  6. Cindy replied:

    Sorry about the “special additive” to your yogurt, as I just ran across while also searching for a way to contact Aldi’s about their Friendly Farm Yogurt. Apparently Aldi’s doesn’t want us to contact them except via old fashioned USPS as there is no customer service access.
    As for the Friendly Farm Yogurt, I just discovered it and think it is of superior quality, especially since they use pectin not gelatin. I have been a vegetarian 30+ years and it is getting hard to find any w/o gelatin. Stoneyfield and Dannon still keep it out of their 32 ouncers but they are very pricey. Friendly Farm is at a bargain price too.
    Think of it this way-better to find a beetle than a roach!
    Besides there is far less potential for contamination in the dairy processong compared to meat packing!

    March 12th, 2006 at 3:31 am. Permalink.

  7. sharon replied:

    maybe the beetle is in there instead of gelatin. I have just found that many beetles (due to the high protein in them) will cause liquids to gel. He probably should have been listed on the ingredient list. ;)

    July 1st, 2006 at 10:16 am. Permalink.

  8. jen replied:

    Wow, that is really something! My grandpa had a crunch from some chili from aldi, now I have a bad can of mixed veggies. Trying to find some kind of contact info, but apparently they don’t much care about customer statisfaction.

    September 18th, 2006 at 4:17 pm. Permalink.

  9. Jeremy replied:

    Aldi’s address.

    September 18th, 2006 at 9:07 pm. Permalink.

  10. perturbed in portland replied:

    nice shot, i just found a japanese beetle in my lucerne yogurt (distributed by safeway) and had a similar, if not overly grossed-out, reaction. looks to be that these buggers are pretty ubiquitous in blueberry farms, wreaking havoc on our delicious berry friends. i hope i can overcome this some day and eventually eat blueberry yogurt again, but i fear it will be a while…

    December 28th, 2006 at 4:15 pm. Permalink.

  11. Oxford replied:

    Nice page. It’s good to have kids who can use this medium to find you

    January 6th, 2007 at 6:30 pm. Permalink.

  12. Diane Priesmeyer replied:

    Hi there!
    Sorry for your unfortunate experience. I too have been trying to figure out who “Friendly Farms” is…While doing a search to find them….I ran across your site. I am kind of curious who the farm is that supplies dairy products for aldi. I am big on the environment and their 1/2 and 1/2 bottles are the biggest waste of plastic. Maybe the cost for cream would be cheaper if they used cartons instead.

    Aloha!
    di : )

    January 25th, 2007 at 3:41 pm. Permalink.

  13. Judy replied:

    I also have had problems with “Friendly Farms” and the fact that you can’t just email Aldi or call them. I have had 2 different occasions where the 1 gal jug of fat free skim milk had a chemical taste to it. Today, I poured out the milk into the sink and was rinsing out the jug and guess what! It bubbled like it had dish soap in it!!! Hmmmmmmm.

    April 3rd, 2007 at 8:02 am. Permalink.

  14. Tom replied:

    I’ve had 6 or 7 gal. of bad skimmed milk from Aldi (friendly Farms) in the last 4 months. The taste makes me gag. I think they clean the hoses and equipment and bottle it. I told my wife tonight never to buy Aldi milk again.
    I found this site trying to find friendly farms website. Maybe I’ll write Aldi to let them know about this problem. 2008 and I can’t email them or call them. What’s up with that!!

    April 24th, 2008 at 1:39 am. Permalink.

  15. Naomi replied:

    I was reading an article on how some farms are now cloning cows, and how cheep it was to do so. Only this is info they are not sharing with the public. There is actually a fight going through the court systems to make it legal to let people know that they are buying milk from cloned cows. Makes me wonder why this Aldi’s milk is so cheep. I tryed looking up Friendly Farms up on the internet and found this website instead.
    I should also mention that I bought orange juice from Aldi’s not to long ago….I put it in my daughters sippy and noticed black bits in it. I hope they are not trying to pass out more of that bug protien around……What ever happened to pride in a brand? When did eating ever get so scary?

    February 4th, 2009 at 11:05 pm. Permalink.

  16. JB replied:

    Just wanted to let everyone know that what’s on the label doesn’t necessarily make the milk in the carton bad. I’m an editor at an agriculture newspaper in Wisconsin (dairy, anyone?) and can vouch for the farmers that they are NOT providing tainted milk to the processors. They get huge fines for doing that. The FDA keeps an updated list of interstate milk shippers, and those companies are strictly monitored. Check out your milk bottle. Each one has a code stamped on it. The first two digits stand for what state that bottle came from. The last three or four stand for which plant that bottle came from in that state. Example: I bought a gallon of skim at Aldi. Code was 19-145. I looked it up and it came from the Swiss Valley Farms plant in Dubuque, Iowa. That plant simply slapped the “Friendly Farms” label on the bottle at Aldi’s request. The next batch may have gone to Kemps, and so on. Milk is a rare example of NOT getting what you pay for. The mark-up is for the marketing, just like any other brand. Cheap milk comes from the same cow as the expensive milk.

    June 9th, 2009 at 10:01 pm. Permalink.

  17. Debbie replied:

    Thank you for the great information about the FDA and interstate milk rules. I just bought a gallon of “Friendly Farms” milk that was actually processed at a Flavo-O-Rich plant. Now I know which codes to look for when shopping. Thanks so much!

    June 15th, 2009 at 8:22 pm. Permalink.

  18. John replied:

    We’ve noticed several chemical tasting gallons in the past several months since trying Aldi’s Fat-Free Milk. After the last one, I got on the Internet and located plant using the stamp on the bottle (39-112). It was Meyer Dairy in Cincinnati, Ohio. Unfortunately, this does not tell me which farm the milk is from.

    November 22nd, 2010 at 7:38 am. Permalink.

  19. Jon Remy replied:

    All of the sudden, ALDI stopped carrying buttermilk. I used to think ALDI’s buttermilk was the best, but then it suddenly wasn’t being stocked anymore. Does anyone know why this is the case? Did someone find something in the ALDI buttermilk that caused them to yank it off the shelf. I’m curious, because I find it strange that they would pull a baking/cooking staple off the dairy shelf, especially since people use buttermilk to make pancakes, biscuits, salad dressing, etc. It sounds fishy to me. Yes, an who exactly is Friendly Farms? All my searches always point me back to ALDI, who obviously doesn’t want to inform us where they are getting their milk. I wouldn’t be surprised to see ALDI go the same direction as Food Lion, bankrupt and out of business!

    November 13th, 2014 at 2:32 pm. Permalink.

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