Comment by dsacco | Hacker News Reader

Comment by dsacco | Hacker News Reader

This is interesting to me because one of my favorite weird hobbies is going to my grocery store, taking a photo of the milk with the farthest date, and sending it to my friends as a sort of game.

I shop at Stew Leonard's most of the time (locations in NY and CT). The milk I buy there is organic and lasts a hell of a long time compared to the milk I frequently see in other supermarkets. The current record I've seen is a gallon of milk with an expiration date 63 days from the day I saw it. I'd say the median is maybe...50 ish days (I shop on Sundays, when I think they've likely restocked).

I regularly buy three gallons at a time, and to this day I find it to be the most fun and humorous part of shopping at the grocery store. This milk has literally never gone bad for me and it tastes delicious.

After reading this article, I'm really interested in knowing whether or not it's heat-treated! I have always assumed it lasts so long because Stew Leonard's owns their own farms relatively close to the grocery stores.

I've had a similar experience. I think the organics companies just clean their equipment/tanks better or something. Regular milk with an expiration date 3 weeks in the future often turns sour within 3 days of opening, despite refrigeration. Whereas organic milk with the same expiration date, from the same shelf in the same store, will last a week and a half. And there's really nothing inherent about organic milk that should make it last longer.

Regular milk with an expiration date 3 weeks in the future often turns sour within 3 days of opening, despite refrigeration.

Wait, what? Are you not refrigerating your milk? This is unusual.

I always refrigerate milk, just wanted to be clear about it to explain that it wasn't going sour because I was doing something dumb like leaving it open on the counter.

I find the reverse. Organic smells sour after 2-4 days, but my standard delivered milk lasts at least a week. Both are local and minimally processed, and come in glass bottles.

Man, you're taking me back to a time when I used to work at Stew Leonards. Their milk is probably one of the best I've had right behind Battenkill Milk. Battenkills is more creamy if you can believe it.

As for expiry dates, I don't recall them ever being that long, but I don't think I've ever looked because I just do a smell test and just trust everything on the shelf is fresh.

It must be UHT. Pasteurised milk (in the UK, at least), will have gone off within a week or so.

Target brand organic milk has an insane shelf life compared to the regular stuff. I've seen it two months out. Not only that but it seems to last longer once opened which is great for me since I don't use much milk.

I think it's required to be heat treated to be sold in the US. I like to check the dates too! I always get a little kick from pulling a gallon from the back that has a few extra days left in the expiry label.

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