Aldi Recalls Cream Cheese Over Salmonella Concerns

Happy Farms may sound like a cheerful name, but some less-than-cheerful news regarding Aldi's cream cheese brand has come to light. The store's 8-ounce tubs of Happy Farms cream cheese spreads — specifically in the varieties regular, whipped, chive and onion, and strawberry — have been recalled due to the possibility of Salmonella contamination, per a document made available on Aldi's corporate website.

The recall does not affect all Aldi locations. It does, however, involve those in the District of Columbia and the following 28 states: Alabama, Arizona, Arkansas, California, Delaware, Florida, Georgia, Illinois, Indiana, Iowa, Kentucky, Maryland, Michigan, Minnesota, Missouri, New Jersey, New York, North Carolina, North Dakota, Ohio, Pennsylvania, South Carolina, South Dakota, Tennessee, Texas, Virginia, West Virginia, and Wisconsin. If you're in one of these states, you may want to avoid buying Aldi's cheese for a while.

Aldi-brand products aren't the only ones affected by this cream cheese contamination. In what may shape up to be one of 2024's bigger food recalls, Hy-Vee is recalling its store-branded regular and whipped cream cheese spreads, as well as its cookies-and-cream flavor. Meanwhile, Schnucks is recalling its regular, whipped, and strawberry spreads, and Hornbacher's is recalling its Essential Everyday garden vegetable cream cheese. All of these products, as well as the recalled Aldi cream cheeses, were produced by Schreiber Foods in Green Bay, Wisconsin.

The sad truth about cream cheese is that, like other soft cheeses, it may be more prone to contamination than harder varieties, because it's low in both salt and acid but high in moisture, thus facilitating bacterial growth. While cream cheese is less dangerous than unpasteurized soft cheeses such as Brie or queso fresco, in general, soft cheeses can be breeding grounds for Listeria (another kind of bacteria), and indeed, cream cheese has been recalled for Listeria concerns in the not-too-distant past.

In 2021, Little Hatch's-brand jalapeño cream cheese — which was sold at Whole Foods and several other retailers throughout the Rocky Mountain West region — was recalled because the FDA found that samples of the product contained the Listeria monocytogenes bacteria. Listeria was also present in the brand's queso dips. It doesn't appear as though any widespread illness occurred as a result of this 2021 product contamination, though that may speak to the recall's effectiveness. Hopefully, the prompt recall of Aldi's, Hy-Vee's, Schnucks', and Hornbacher's potentially Salmonella-tainted cream cheese will also prevent any customers from suffering ill effects.