Great Value Milk

While I don’t buy anything else from Walmart besides car needs and Fancy Feast(and the occasional Blue Bunny ice cream, or when they had it, Milo’s Sweet Tea), milk is milk. The USDA plant code will reveal who produced it.

In CA, with the closure of Dean Foods who owned the Berkeley Farms label as well as Alta Dena in SoCal(Alta Dena is still around), Crystal and Producer’s in the Central Valley as well as Albertsons(Lucerne at Safeway/Vons/Pavilions - made in San Leandro and somewhere in SoCal) are the biggest dairy producers. Clover Stronetta from Sonoma County’s my pick for dairy. When Dean Foods was still around, Berkeley Farms/Alta Dena/Model Dairy ruled the CA market.
 
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Strauss Farms sources their organic milk from their own 300 grazing cows and from 11 other local family-owned ranches with a combined total of about 3,000 cows. All their cows are grazing cows in the Tomales area. You can see those cows roam the grasslands along Tomales Bay. They sleep in open barns. Strauss has a still new 50,000 square foot dairy plant in Petaluma where they produce all their dairy products, milk, cream, and other dairy products. The Cowgirl Creamery uses Strauss Farms' milk for making their outstanding cheeses. Strauss Farms products do cost more than mass-produced dairy you get at a discount market but the quality is much higher and it comes in reusable glass bottles. Legal minimum standards do not mean top quality. Strauss Farms was the first 100% certified organic creamery in the whole country. If you live in the ay Area you should at least try their milk and cream at least once. No, they don't pay me. I just happen to like their products based on their great quality and taste and based on their ways of farming.
 
we're not a big milk drinking family...I mainly use it in my morning coffee...
the best i've had, is from a Small independent Dairy about 10 mi from my sister's house. https://knuevencreamery.com/
the whole milk is... barely pasteurized, non homogenized... fantastic in Coffee.
can't find anything close.


First they were carried in a local-ish grocery chain, but I kept running into all their product being outdated and still on the shelf... they also sold online, you could either pick up at the diary, or for $5 they'd deliver in the surrounding few counties. (Or If you signed up for a every 2 week subscription the delivery charge got waived)

I'm about a 40 min drive from the dairy, so I'd order and have it delivered to my sister's place about 10 min from them. (gave me an excuse to visit my sister every other week).
now they partnered with a specialized local farm delivery service, with an obnoxious delivery fee. like it would double the cost of the (2) 1/2 Gallons I got. (like it would have been $15 every 2 weeks for a gallon of milk)
 
This is a bash thread without merit. Some of the Great Value milk might be the same as another local chain gets.

There are plant codes on milk. The milk goes from reefer trailer to store and there is a milk cave which is loaded from behind. This isn't like the occasional doofus with a pallet of frozen food that takes an hour before its all stocked.
Well said...
 
Something I have noticed in the last 2 years is that many yogurts and sour creams have the very distinct smell/ taste of manure (just like we got at the farm)

My thoughts are that the quality controls have gone downhill at many producers the last couple of years

Milk although I have milk allergies/intolerance are usually all tolerable taste to me but the Ultra Pasturized crap has a sort of smelly burned note to it that is hard to describe. Yes it’s shelf stable but it likely has unforeseen side effects like one report stated you get more “damaged cholesterol” content which raises the bad numbers.

Convenience over taste / nutrition (like a lot of things)
 

I know this was from 2017, but the takeaway I see is:

  • Retailers say they’re more agile than traditional milk processors and can make other products such as juice and iced tea when milk demand or prices slump. As Evan Rainwater, Albertsons’s senior vice president for manufacturing, told the newspaper, “You can do a lot more in a dairy plant than make dairy.”

and this:

Kroger is now processing all the fresh milk its stores sell, according to The Wall Street Journal.

So basically you can have all the milk from different brands different sources go to the same "plant", even different liquid like OJ and ice tea. This means plant it is from means nothing now.
 
I can't taste the difference between any pasteurized brand from the store, whether it be Great Value or PET. I can, however, taste a big difference when getting the unpasteurized milk from the local farm. Well worth the $1 more per gallon.
 
there is science to support your argument, differences in feed DO change the flavour of the milk


some small producers even change the feed to alter the taste of their milk


this being said most bulk sales of milk go from the farm into a HUGE tank and are mixed with other loads prior to pasteurization

small flavour tastes are diminished by dilution with other milk in the vat, the 'flavour" of any milk is a combination of all the raw milk sources delivered to the plant


no that is not me in the picture, lol
I can only tell what I was told about what other food business people told me. They do blend things to keep cost and quality in check, and different quality for different market obviously.

Pretty much every one would meet the safety guideline the government set out, what they want is usually consistency so the customers know what to expect and come back for. Maybe they blend like coffee (obviously) and orange juice (orange juice is blend based on satellite image of how each grove patch looks, according to an article I read), and I'm sure each company has its own expert to taste test and know how to blend the final product.

The cheapest lowest price bin of each market will always be the one that accept whatever cheapest they can get as long as they meet the safety standard. I'm not saying Great Value is horrible but as others mentioned here they can be inconsistent between jugs, something that the higher value brand would be very careful to avoid.

The plant and machine is just a tool, just because everyone use the same tool it doesn't mean everyone targets the same price and quality is my take.

In strawberries and blueberries (we eat a lot of them) I notice they put different labels on them based on quality, I'm sure they are all from the same field but they can't control weather. Do they do that to milks that do not meet certain brands' standard?
 
Milk although I have milk allergies/intolerance are usually all tolerable taste to me but the Ultra Pasturized crap has a sort of smelly burned note to it that is hard to describe.

UHT is gaining in popularity - and not just “shelf-stable” milk products that Parmalat popularized with TetraPak. It’s gone beyond the little creamers in a cup you get at a fast food place/office/airplane. Even refrigerated liquid dairy is UHT processed - not just store brand but Organic Valley and Horizon(I think Danone owns them) has been UHT processing their organic dairy. The health nuts have been buying “raw” dairy from the farmer’s markets around here. A dairy here has been proud of their small-batch pasteurization. Cooks and bakers complain that UHT-processed dairy doesn’t perform as well for their needs.

Golden State Foods - a long-time McDonald’s supplier and Lyons-Magnus(in the news for listeria/campylobacter contamination) have a huge UHT bag-in-box and aseptic business for private label and contract packaging of shelf-stable dairy and non-dairy drinks/pre-mixes(think Starbucks Frappachinos and gas station/C-store coffee drinks).
 
Clover Stronetta from Sonoma County’s my pick for dairy.

They rebranded as "Clover Sonoma". But that's not exactly it because I've seen signs that some Marin County dairy ranches supplied them, including one on Tomales Point. Their map of suppliers shows several in Marin, Humboldt, and (now) in the Central Valley - Garcia Dairy in Modesto and Double D Dairy #2 in Ceres.


I've seen local Trader Joe's organic milk that had a Clover plant code. But conventional usually came up as Berkeley Farms. I'm sure it's probably Producer's or Crystal now.
 
UHT is gaining in popularity - and not just “shelf-stable” milk products that Parmalat popularized with TetraPak. It’s gone beyond the little creamers in a cup you get at a fast food place/office/airplane. Even refrigerated liquid dairy is UHT processed - not just store brand but Organic Valley and Horizon(I think Danone owns them) has been UHT processing their organic dairy. The health nuts have been buying “raw” dairy from the farmer’s markets around here. A dairy here has been proud of their small-batch pasteurization. Cooks and bakers complain that UHT-processed dairy doesn’t perform as well for their needs.

I bought some of that when I was on vacation in Florida when a storm hit. My hotel never lost power, but it was weird buying shelf-stable milk, filling up the bath tub, and stocking up on junk food. I found it when I was camping too. I've seen similar milk at Dollar Tree from some dairy in Utah. Looked it up and it's Gossner Foods.


I frankly don't like that kind of milk. The sugars usually get caramelized by the process and there's just something a little bit weird. But there might be some differences between UHT and "Ultra Pasteurized". I understand that many refrigerated milk is sold that way to give it something like a 6 month refrigerated shelf life.
 

I know this was from 2017, but the takeaway I see is:

  • Retailers say they’re more agile than traditional milk processors and can make other products such as juice and iced tea when milk demand or prices slump. As Evan Rainwater, Albertsons’s senior vice president for manufacturing, told the newspaper, “You can do a lot more in a dairy plant than make dairy.”

and this:

Kroger is now processing all the fresh milk its stores sell, according to The Wall Street Journal.

So basically you can have all the milk from different brands different sources go to the same "plant", even different liquid like OJ and ice tea. This means plant it is from means nothing now.

Safeway bought its own dairy (Lucerne) decades ago and of course Albertson's owns them. However, it looks like they're not on the current list under that name, but replaced by "Safeway Stores" with locations in San Leandro, City of Industry (interesting since it's all Vons there in SoCal), Arizona, Washington, Colorado, and Oregon.

 
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early in his career my late dad was an agricultural extension specialist. he told the story of visiting a vegetable cannery once, that day it was packing green peas. in the morning the labels read “a&p.” in the afternoon the labels read “leseur.” same cans, same peas, same safety protocols, different label, different store prices.
 
I know milk suppliers vary by region, but my wife says the taste of Great Value (Walmart) milk is "vastly inferior" to any other store brand. As a result, she refuses to drink it.

Unfortunately, I cannot fully verify her complaint - to me it tastes "similar" to other brands. Does anyone else find Great Value milk to be "inferior" to other options?
Oh yeah. It has a weird plastic type taste. I can't seem to figure out why. I only buy organic milk
 
Oh yeah. It has a weird plastic type taste. I can't seem to figure out why. I only buy organic milk
If they don’t properly supercool the boiling milk when filling the asceptic packaging it definitely tastes like eating plastic

Long ago Walmart had bagged milk like Kwik Trip of all the bagged milk brands only KT doesn’t taste like eating a plastic bag, bagged Walland was the worst.

Something worth noting all UHT/ Ultra Pastirized milk can be shelf stable but only if it’s packaged correctly, a few brands in the refrigerated section ACTUALLY ARE shelf stable but marketing demands they refrigerate it so people aren’t terrified.

Refrigerating UHT also reduces the oxidation rate and transfer rate of off flavors from the packaging .

It’s very unfortunate most organic milk is UHT
As most of the cholesterol in it gets oxidated which is not only unhealthy but also contributes to the flavor and smell of UHT.

Some of the UHT patents actually describe ultra filtration methods to reduce/remove cholesterol in milk to prevent this due to taste issues
 
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