So I tend to notice this a lot. When I go to the dairy section at my local grocer and many grocer's recently, everything is clean and in order. Until.....you reach the MILK SECTION. There, Milk cartons or containers are sometimes dirty enough to turn you away from purchasing them. I've seen some with what appears to be splashes of liquid on them, black spots or dirt, etc. I'm noticing this more and more and I wonder if the places where the milk is bottled are becoming more unsanitary. When I shop at Pathmark, I don't see this problem often. But what I do see....are milk trails dried onto the container. Like someone shook the milk up and it exploded out of the container somehow. Or maybe, when the machine was pouring the milk into the container at the factory, it overflowed onto the carton, and they never bothered to clean it off. Either way, it's very off-putting. I also notice some of my local grocers stocking shelves purposely to promote their brand of milk. So for example, a quart of milk will be a brand like Tuscan or something. But anything above a quart will be store brand stocked. And no one wants store brand milk unless it's Pathmark, or Shop Rite or something. Not random local grocer brand milk. Yuck.
Well that's not very pleasant... I've only seen some cases where the milk bottle was opened and was leaking, or had those dark, watery spots like you mentioned. Whenever I opened them, there seems to be debris of some sort, probably on the cap or something. Was really weird, but I drank it anyway...
You're nuts lol. Anyways, I think it's ultimately where the milk arrives from. The plants are not being kept up to health code standards. I'll bet a special news investigation report will appear some day exposing how milk bottling plants have all kinds of violations and junk.
Where are you at? I've not had any of those issues with my milk. It's been good and fresh and clean - maybe you should try shopping elsewhere?
Even if the milk arrives this way when it gets to the store or not, it isn't going to take a lot of time for the person putting them on the shelf to wipe them down as they go along. Jeez... thats enough to make a person not want to but anything at the store, let alone the milk. Its like people at work just don't take pride in their work anymore. Always waiting for someone to tell them what to do.
I'm in New York. Yeah the milk I buy is fresh but my main complaint is most of the time, usually when you go to a supermarket. You maybe see 1 or 2 cartons of milk that look scruffy or sullied. But lately it's like 80% of the supply!
You were entitled to a refund or entitled to go get 3 different cartons of milk. Just so as long as you had your receipt. You should report him.
At Walmart the gallons look clean but several of them drip milk, so I usually have to look at several of them for an intact, non dripping bottle. I suspect that they slam them into the wire refrigerator racks roughly without being careful not to squash them.
Pinholed...I've been pinholed a few times with soda bottles and juice cartons. You have to look for those same things with meats too. I've gotten to the register with a few packs of hamburger only to discover one had a hole in the wrapping.
In the supermarket that I shop in, I haven't encountered such problems yet. I think you should shop someplace else where they store milk in a more neat way, to say the least. You probably should also mention your concerns to the store manager.
I don't think it is the plant that it is happening in. There is a shipping process and quite often there are containers of anything (including milk) that break on the trailer of the truck that brings it to the stores. As for the dirt splatters, it is probably during the shipping process or when the store gets it if it is raining. Dirt on the outside does not make the milk contaminated. I have gotten gallons that had dried milk on the outside from another container breaking and leaking from above. As long as the milk container is sealed and there are no holes in it, you are ok. But if there is a hole in the container, there could be a problem since milk will spoil faster when air gets in it. Milk is also not shipped completely alone so the truck carrying it to the stores may have iced tea or even other things in it so the splatters may not be dirt even. Hard to say but I don't worry much about it as long as it is a reputable supplier. Many of the stores in NJ have their brand and also a name brand in the gallon sizes too. The name brand costs a little more, but usually they are available. Lehigh Valley Dairy is a good one, but not sure they are in NY. They even use the white plastic to help preserve it better.
I'm not a big milk drinker to begin with (grosses me out a bit) but my husband and son are, and we all cook a lot so it's a necessary evil. I've noticed the same thing you're speaking of, and it doesn't seem to change much depending on what store I'm at or where I'm at. Gross .
I have not seen any problems with the milk here, at least not in any of the stores where I usually shop, ut I live near a smaller town, so these stores are probably kept cleaner than stores on a huge city like New York maybe. I always look at the dates for expiration, and get the ones that are the freshest when I get milk. We don't use much milk, ut I have hardly ever had one go bad on me before we finish it. If I even think it is getting old, I usually make corn bread, or use it in gravy or something to get it used up before it would go bad.
It's rather appropriate for what's inside the carton of the average supermarket milk. Milk in the states contains hormones, antibiotics and the famous 'puss'. I wouldn't drink that stuff if you paid me, it is very dirty.
Funny, i have never had this problem before in any of the supermarkets i usually go, everything is always clean and organized. Am i just being lucky with the usual places?
