The 11 Worst Cottage Cheese Recalls In History
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Cottage cheese is a food that divides opinion: Some people find its lumpy, slightly tangy nature utterly offensive, while others revel in its ability to be upgraded and to deliver loads of protein in just a few mouthfuls. Wherever you stand on cottage cheese, though, you can’t deny its ubiquity. This dairy product is available in almost every store in the country for just a couple bucks a pop, and there are dozens, if not hundreds, of food companies out there that churn out tons of the stuff every day.
The more of a food product there is out there, though, the more likely it is that something goes wrong with it. Cottage cheese is no exception. Over the years there have been some utterly disastrous instances of cottage cheese being shipped to customers while pretty unsafe to eat, whether it has pieces of metal or glass (yep, glass) lurking between its curds or whether it’s been made with tainted milk. These moments have prompted some serious recalls, which have at times involved millions of pounds of product and cost the companies that made the cheese a lot of money. Let’s take a look at the worst cottage cheese recalls of all time.
1. Kraft recalled a massive amount of cottage cheese in 2014
If you were working at Kraft Foods Group in 2014, we’re willing to bet that you were fairly stressed — especially if you were working in the cottage cheese department (it has its own department, right?). The migraines started in May of that year, when it emerged that some of its cottage cheese products had been stored at potentially unsafe temperatures. As cottage cheese is a perishable item, this meant that select batches of the products could be at risk of being spoiled or having developed the potential to cause foodborne illness.
Unfortunately, Kraft doesn’t do things by halves: As one of the biggest food producers in the world, any recall it deals with is likely to be big. This one was indeed that, with approximately 1.2 million cases of affected product having been shipped to customers around the country, and subsequently being subject to its recall notice. Dozens of different items under the Kraft, Breakstone’s, Knudsen, and Daily Chef brand names all had to be tracked down. Plus, Kraft had to find almost three months’ worth of code dates. Not exactly fun for anyone, right?
2. Undeclared sugar resulted in a recall of pineapple cottage cheese
Cottage cheese, like many other types of cheese, goes well with sugary flavors — which is exactly why it’s often shipped packed with fruits or jams. However, if you’re buying one of these products, you’ll likely want to know exactly how much sugar you’re consuming. In 2024 it turned out that was harder than it seemed for purchasers of HP Hood’s Fat Free Cottage Cheese with Added Pineapple. The company failed to declare some of its sugar content on the label, and after several people complained to the manufacturer it had to issue a recall.
753 cases of cottage cheese had to be recalled in total, equating to thousands of individual tubs. You might think that consumers should have expected a cottage cheese loaded with pineapple to have a fair amount of sugar, but it’s not that simple: other brands have similar offerings that contain as little as three grams per serving. Aside from the fact that some people simply may not want to be eating high amounts of sugar with their cottage cheese, undeclared sugar is also fairly risky for some people. Eating too much sugar without balancing it with insulin may prompt hyperglycemia in individuals with diabetes, which can lead to challenging symptoms.
3. Foreign material contamination prompted a 2019 recall
The texture of cottage cheese is already fairly challenging for some people, in all its squidgy, lumpy irregularity. Throw in the potential for contamination from not one, but two foreign objects, and it becomes a real minefield to consume. This was the case back in 2019 when Kraft Heinz shipped nearly 10,000 cases of its Breakstone’s cottage cheese which had apparently become contaminated with both plastic and metal. The food company received six individual complaints from customers who had all found the materials in their food, and it became clear that there could be many more pots out there that contained more than just cheese. We’re betting that folks wouldn’t want to use their cottage cheese for much after that.
The foreign materials were apparently introduced to the cheese at the point of production, but exactly how they ended up in there (or what they came from) remains pretty unclear. Nonetheless, the company had to recall lots of two different container sizes of its cheese in various different formulations. The worst part for Kraft Heinz was that it hadn’t just been shipped across the country, but also abroad to countries in Latin America. It had an international recall on its hands, and we’re sure it wasn’t pleased.
4. In 2022, Lactaid Cottage Cheese was recalled due to plastic pieces
We’ll never fail to marvel at how often food companies introduce plastic into their foods. For some reason, with cottage cheese it happens all the time. In 2022 there was yet another instance of plastic ending up in this dairy product, in the form of pieces of the material ending up in tubs of Lactaid. HP Hood, the manufacturer of the cottage cheese brand, had to recall tubs of its 4% Cottage Cheese so as not to put customers at risk. While it did state that the pieces were unlikely to cause illness or injury, which implies that they were too small to create harm, it’s not exactly an ingredient you want in there.
This could have been a relatively small-scale recall, but regrettably HP Hood had to deal with a fair amount of product here. It was forced to recall pots of cottage cheese that had best by dates spanning approximately six weeks. This no doubt caused a pretty large problem for the manufacturer, who have already had to deal with some drawbacks of its cottage cheese brand. The Penn Maid brand was also affected, with pots in several different sizes having to be recalled.
5. E. coli contamination was the cause of a large recall in 2000
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E. coli infection can be incredibly dangerous, and food companies take occurrences of the bacteria that causes it very seriously. As such, it was no surprise when Kraft was prompted to recall six of its cottage cheese products in 2000, after E. coli was found. The company discovered E. coli bacteria in several samples from a single day’s production, and it had to act pretty much immediately to track down all of the affected items. While it was helped by the fact that all of the cheese was made in one day, it also had to find a lot of cases: 11,000 of them, to be precise.
Kraft’s Breakstone’s and Light n’ Lively brands were both impacted, with several products in each line recalled (even though the E. coli was only found in one of the Breakstone’s items). As this was Kraft and not some other smaller food company, the items had been shipped far and wide, with the cottage cheese being sent to stores around the country. It appears that this incidence of E. coli bacteria didn’t spill over into a full-on outbreak, which we’re sure Kraft is very thankful for.
6. Poor pasteurization processes led to a 2016 recall
Cottage cheese is made with pasteurized milk in the United States, with the process making the food safe and inactivating certain enzymes. Unfortunately, however, every now and again processes can fail, and improperly made products can slip through the net. This was the case in 2016, when Westby Cooperative Creamery had to recall thousands of tubs of various cottage cheeses after it was found that they may not have been pasteurized properly. Testing revealed that the tubs had active alkaline phosphate inside them, an enzyme that remains active when food hasn’t been fully or properly pasteurized.
Following the discovery of the alkaline phosphate, Westby Cooperative Creamery undertook more testing and found that there were no harmful pathogens in its products. Nonetheless, it had to go about recalling the items before things went awry. Things were complicated by the fact that Westby Cooperative Creamery was selling the affected cottage cheese under four different brand names in containers of several different sizes. Thankfully for the company, the cottage cheese had only gone out to stores across Wisconsin. Using that cottage cheese, however, was a big no-no.
7. When cottage cheese shipped to restaurants was found to contain metal, a recall was issued
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Most people who have eaten in a restaurant will know that they’re not immune to things going wrong. Aside from food not being cooked to standard or coming out cold, many of us have also received a meal with a hair poking out of it. Generally, though, we’d expect that to be the worst thing that can happen — which is why we were so shocked to find out that in 2024, batches of cottage cheese that were contaminated with pieces of metal were shipped to restaurants across Canada. The affected cheese was made by Dairyland, and the 10 kilogram tubs of it were also sent to hotels and institutions.
Now, we don’t know about you, but we really don’t want to pick metal out of our teeth when eating a freshly cooked meal. The cottage cheese was shipped to five different provinces across the country, making this a fairly wide-scale retrieval operation. It’s unclear exactly how the metal ended up in the cottage cheese, but if you’ve ever seen how it’s made in factories, it’s unsurprising that it could get into the food. At several stages of the production process cottage cheese is stirred or processed with large metal pieces, and all it takes is one of them to deteriorate or fall in for things to go wrong.
8. In 2011, H-E-B had to recall its cottage cheese and other dairy products
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You can generally expect products sold under the H-E-B brand name to be pretty reliable. After all, like most items sold in major supermarkets, they generally go through a little more inspection than the produce you’d buy at independent stores or farmers’ markets. All that process doesn’t mean that store-brand items never have to be recalled, though, and in 2011 H-E-B had to reckon with a recall of its own for its dairy products — including its cottage cheese.
The cause of this specific recall, as with so many other cottage cheese recalls, was contamination from foreign material. Exactly which material made it into the cheese was unclear, but what was clear was that the problem was fairly far-reaching. Alongside cottage cheese, H-E-B had to recall its sour cream, yogurt, and dips for the same reason. Plus, the affected items had been sold between June 18 and July 27, widening the risk of customers receiving contaminated products. Luckily for H-E-B, nobody had reported any injuries at the time of recall.
9. Glass shards caused a 1987 recall
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We’ve seen a lot of reasons for food recalls in our time, but few causes make us feel uncomfortable as the presence of glass. There’s something about the thought of it getting into creamy dairy products which is especially unpleasant. Well, we’re afraid you’re gonna have to reckon with those feelings, because in 1987 this very thing occurred. That year Knudsen Corp., a California-based food producer, announced to the world that some of its cottage cheese products may have had glass shards in them. It subsequently had to issue a recall for the items, which had been shipped to and sold in California and Nevada.
Knudsen Corp. announced that the recall was precautionary, as opposed to being prompted by anybody ingesting any glass itself. Well, we guess that’s kinda comforting, but not overly so. It wasn’t an isolated couple of shards in one pot, either (not that that makes things any better): Knudsen had to recall six individual shipments of several different types of cheese, implying that it could be a widespread issue. Honestly though, even though it’s been a couple of decades, we really do just need to know how the glass got in there.
10. A 2002 recall was issued after tainted milk was used
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Tainted. It’s a word that you really don’t want associated with your milk, right? Well, we’re afraid that we can’t give you that comfort on this next one. A couple of decades ago, an incident prompted a recall of cottage cheese when a herd of cows inadvertently tainted their own milk supply. It all began when a group of cows in Indiana made their way into a farm building and ingested the granular pesticide Aztec, after apparently mistaking it for feed. Several hours later the cows were milked, with some of the milk then being shipped to Deans Food Co., which then made batches of Dean’s cottage cheese with it.
When many of these cows died several days later, it became clear that something was seriously wrong. An investigation was conducted, the Indiana Board of Animal Health placed the farm under strict orders, and the cottage cheese was recalled. It seems like nobody became ill from eating it, which is a small miracle given the severity of the symptoms that Aztec can cause. Overexposure to Aztec can cause a host of dangerous effects, including unconsciousness, respiratory depression, and death.
11. Pieces of metal in cottage cheese resulted in a recall
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We’re really gonna need cottage cheese manufacturers to stop getting metal in their products, guys. It seems to happen all the time — and it happened once again in 2013. That year, prominent cottage cheese manufacturer HP Hood had to recall a range of its products due to metal contamination. The company issued the recall after metal fragments were found in a single pack of cottage cheese, which appeared to indicate that it could be in other products.
Unlike many other cottage cheese recalls resulting from metal contamination, this one actually revealed where the metal came from. It appears that a faulty manufacturing part may have loosened or made its way into the cheese, which may then have been processed or churned up further. HP Hood was fortunate that it was only one code date that seemed to be affected, but it had the bad luck for this recall to be given a Class II categorization, which indicated that it could cause negative health consequences.
