We’ve had an interesting report from Melissa who got in touch over Facebook. She’s an almond milk drinker and noticed something a little dodgy with the So Good variety she bought the other day:
“I purchase almond milk for myself due to being lactose intolerant. I normally buy a fresh almond milk from the fridge section at Costco (brand is Inside Out), but the other day wanted to buy some almond milk for work so picked up a So Good Unsweetened Almond Milk from the fridge section of a supermarket as it was on sale. I noticed that the expiry date for the So Good one was significantly longer than my usual brand - So Good expired in April, where Inside Out & other fresh almond milk brands I’ve purchased (eg Nutty Bruce) have an expiry of about 1.5-2 weeks, similar to fresh cows milk. I asked So Good why this was the case via Facebook PM. Firstly they didn’t answer my question (responding that UHT has a longer expiry bc it is made differently), then when I clarified that I do not believe their almond milk in the fridge section really is fresh, they just responded that it was, with no explanation. It seems such a big discrepancy and I feel that they really are selling UHT almond milk but just labelling it as fresh so that they can charge a premium for it.”
We had a look at the ingredients for both the chilled and non-chilled varieties of So Good unsweeteened almond milk and they do vary slightly (more preservatives in the non-chilled variety) but not much. We noticed that the label does not say it’s ‘fresh’ only ‘chilled’ so we’re sceptical - as Melissa is - about the freshness of (and paying a premium for) this variety of almond milk. Storing it in the fridge seems like a nice opportunity for Sanitarium to cash in on the increased demand for fresh almond milk.
Melissa got in touch with Sanitarium to try and get an answer and received the following:
Pretty unsatisfactory explanation thought I should share this info for any almond milk drinkers out there! Let us know if you’ve had a similar experience.
Could it have been pasteurised rather than UHT treatment thus extending shelf life but not as much as UHT treatment? Why not then say it is pasteurised and not hide behind ambiguous terms like the “similar process”.
It’s a possibility!
Either way, the communication Melissa received from Sanitarium was pretty terrible. Don’t think she’ll be buying that almond milk again in a hurry.
Coping criticism for the content of my hot drink? Well of course this is a problem. I spend my day breathlessly waiting for strangers to put in the slipper because my choice in refreshment is ideologically unsound. You have to watch out, the gulags await the incautious sipper.
I remember buying sanitarium soy milk one time it eas pretty bad compared to vita soy. Maybe they should stay with breakfast cereal instead of alternative milk. Lets add sanitarium to the shonky list for soy milk.