This Fairlife Milk Copycat Passes The Taste Test According To Aldi Fans

It's hard out here for a lactose-free milk drinker. Despite the fact that there are multiple brands of lactose-free milk, many tend to taste too sweet because the sugar in the milk (the lactose) is turned into simpler, sweeter-tasting sugars, glucose and galactose, when lactase enters the mix. For some people that's not a dealbreaker, but for others who don't like that saccharine flavor profile, the best choice is probably Fairlife, which is ultra-filtered. This process removes a lot of the sugar from the milk, which leaves a clean, creamy, unsweetened taste. 

This premium milk doesn't come cheap however, which is why news of an Aldi dupe for the 2% unflavored milk is welcome if you're a Fairlife devotee shopping on a budget. But is it one of those dupes that tastes just like the real thing? Aldi fans give it a thumbs up. "The Aldi one tastes more like normal milk than [Fairlife]," said a Reddit user, adding, "It's slightly sweeter than normal milk but nothing like Lactaid milk. It's also not as thick as Fairlife."

Eagle-eyed Aldi shoppers had noticed that the discount chain had stopped selling Fairlife recently, so it's possible that the company was making space for the Friendly Farms dupe. "I lost hope and stopped looking for it. I started buying it at another store," said another Redditor, "until the Friendly Farms brand caught my eye today! It was even in the exact same spot where Fairlife was stocked."

While you've probably heard of ultra-pasteurized milk, ultra-filtered milk is a bit of a newcomer to the cow's milk market. Fairlife, which is owned by Coca-Cola, says on its website that the manufacturers use a proprietary process of passing milk through soft filters, which concentrates the calcium and protein and removes most of the sugar. While it's a new-ish technology for milk producers, this type of filtration is actually popular among winemakers and brewers to remove spoilage organisms, improve clarity, and give their products a longer shelf life. Membrane filtering is also commonly used for water filtration and treatment. These kinds of filters have small pores that allow the liquid to pass through while trapping larger particles such as, in the case of ultra-filtered milk, lactose molecules.

With all that in mind, there's a case to be made that this dupe is perhaps made by Fairlife itself. Filtering technology costs money, and Farilife already owns the facilities to do it, so it's possible the two companies worked out a private-label deal. However, store fans say that there are some subtle differences between the brand name and the dupe. Still, for the price, it's definitely worth checking out the Friendly Farms version if you like Fairlife milk. While you're shopping you can always grab some of Aldi's other dupes to go with it, like the grocery store's copycat Girl Scout cookies, or check out our ranking of the chain's breakfast cereal offerings.