Juice and milk bottles that leak when laid flat

Hi Choice, could you do a name-and-shame for milk and juice bottles that leak when you lay them flat in the fridge?
This is a frequent annoyance for me. The fridge door is not only the first place to run out of space, it’s also the warmest place in the fridge. Therefore, I want to lay my milk (or juice) flat on the shelf.
Come back an hour later… milk all over everything.
I think it’s a reasonable expectation that these bottles shouldn’t leak (assuming the lid’s on properly). What do others think? Can we band together to pressure them to pick up their game?

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Great suggestion. It annoys us too. Especially when the bottles are as purchased from the store and have never been opened?

Our experience with fridges is that it also helps to leave one shelf out to create extra space for tall things. Our current Electrolux model fridge has a half depth top shelf with a slide away extension that we use to create the extra space as needed.

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My new LG bottom mount fridge - brilliantly low power consumption - also has a front -to-back slide away shelf: I store tall bottles/jars in front of it. But - it is incredibly annoying trying to access the items behind: it would be more efficient if the shelf slid sideways…

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Yes I agree this has been on my hate list for a long time. The fact that the milk bottle leaks from being unopened indicated that it is not sealed?

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I currently have a Woolworths 1 L milk carton in my fridge - standing upright on some kitchen paper towels- leaking milk everywhere. I pull it out to use and there is a path of droplets on the floor from fridge to bench!! This is not the first time and I have told The supermarket of the problem. Now I inspect the carton before buying - tipping up and down etc. Unfortunately I somehow slipped up this time!!

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Ha, yes! (And don’t get me started on the security-sealed bottles that you can open and close half a dozen times before the security ring actually breaks.)

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Wandering off topic, but germane.

I raised that with Woolies and Coles in the context of people with wrist/hand weaknesses and related handicaps. Both assured their caps met all necessary standards for ‘accessability’.

The primary fault may not be with the producers who just need packaging, but with those who set (and now and then uphold) the ‘standards’. nb. In honesty some months after my query it seems the glue used on the foil seals on that type of bottle has subsequently been modified so the seals are easier to peel off, but still problematic for those with weak fingers and wrists.

The older technology twist offs? No change. I just learnt to always assure the caps are tight from the shop shelf and never lay them down until the quantity in the bottle is below the mouth and thus will not leak.

How hard can it be to make a proper reliable sealed cap? Maybe more than we appreciate when every fraction of a penny per unit is the most important thing to the commercial user buying packaging.

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Good idea @lizjuniper. If people could list the particular brand/item where this is occuring, we can start to see if there is any product correlations.

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I have now solved this problem for myself after years of milk running down other shelves and making such a mess under the vegetable drawer, when I accidently found the solution while I had everything out of the fridge giving it a good clean…I put the shelves (mine are adjustable) back so I could stand the milk, juice etc upright and next to the side of the fridge, where I believe it is colder. It is amazing I did not think of it years ago, its one of those things that make you wonder what you were thinking…

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Here’s mine for starters. The thing I most don’t understand is that they’re inconsistent. For both of these, the bottle will seal perfectly one time, but the next time it leaks all over the place.

  • Milk - Farmhouse Gold
  • Juice - Bickford’s
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I have had this issue in the past (2 or 3 years ago) with the 2 and 3 litre Aldi milk bottles but as we no longer buy store brand milk I can’t confirm if this still occurs.

But it isn’t only milk and juice, what about cleaning fluid bottles eg floor cleaners, dishwashing detergents that easly open or are not sealed properly and leak if laying flat in the shopping baskets. Child safe? I don’t think so just check out the Aldi Floor Cleaner bottles that are a flip top lid that are easily knocked open even in store.

Then the other bottled/sealed products such as Fehlberg pickled products eg their Pickled Onions of which many are not air tight sealed and if slightly tipped even in store leak as it did to us 3 days ago.

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Add some of the upside down bottles to the topic. We refuse to buy certain products in them because regardless of brand or the specific bottle, the product seems to escape some bottles no matter how carefully resealed. When it is meant to be upside down it is special when it leaks.

Common culprits include the occasional ketsup/sauce and mustards, but the worst in our experience is by far molasses.

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We mustn’t buy products which lie down and then leak as we have,'t had such problems.

The only problems with containers are the rip pull type openers or the push and split type long life containers as these often fail. The rip pull ones often result in the loop being in ones hand with the container still sealed or the push and cut ones not ocurring properly resulting in poor decanting control.

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Oh! Molasses! What an awful thing to have leaking.

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Not just confined to liquid containers.

I was at our local Coles this afternoon and purchased a Steggles 500gm tray of chicken livers to grill for our puppy.

There were only 3 trays and after I picked up the second one and I was putting the first one back in the meat display, liquid spilled out of it all over the floor as the seal between the cling wrap and the plastic was either defective or damaged.

I played “find a staff member” and advised the person what had happened and she promptly cleaned up the spill and said that she would dispose of the faulty tray.

Apart from the possible dangers presented by the spilled liquid, there would also be a serious risk of the contents being contaminated by bacteria due to the damaged seal.

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Molasses is a killer !!

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My daughter also complains of leaking milk bottles, not only in the fridge but as they are being delivered by Coles. You have to wonder if it escapes into the truck itself or whether it just takes out individual orders! Hopefully the drivers are reporting back to Coles. She buys Coles homebrand milk.

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We have had the milk bottle leaking problem for months with PURA Light Start 2L bottles. Contacted PURA who have begun an investigation into this issue. Expect to hear about a solution around April/May 2019.

I AM surprised to hear from other people that so many bottles leak.

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After a bit of testing and trialling, I’ve found the best reliability with glass bottles (e.g. Sunraysia).

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It seems that they have problems in the bottling process by not being able to control the temperature when sealing; this results in the neck/top of the bottle being distorted. A lack of quality control- something we don’t hear much of these days.

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