Battle lines are being drawn between two groups of UNH students, as a highly debated issue has erupted on campus: the brand of yogurt being served in the UNH dining halls. Recently, UNH switched from serving Stonyfield yogurt to Sunrise Farms yogurt.
In the aftermath of the change, the conflict between those who favor the old yogurt and the new yogurt is heating up, and the evidence is all over Twitter.
One account, @unhyogurt, which is anti-new yogurt, has retweeted students who have complained about it, and posted about changing the yogurt back to Stonyfield.
“I had yogurt the other day, it was dairyyyyy good!!! (Get it like very?), and then they changed the yogurt brand and it’s pretty bad now,” @unhyogurt tweeted on April 6. The account already has 94 followers and has even tweeted at UNH Dining.
Its most recent tweet to UNH Dining on April 10 said, “@UNHDining: still mad @ you.”
The old yogurt’s rival Twitter account, @KeepUNHYogurt, which advocates in support of the new yogurt and has nine followers, replied, saying, “We want nutritious and delicious yogurt! Not sugar saturated Stonyfield! #stopwhining.”
“The battle for our yogurt has never been more important! Our enemies (though dim) will never get in our way of ultimate yogurt glory!!!!!” @KeepUNHYogurt also tweeted on April 11.
Other students have joined the battle over the brand of yogurt served by UNH dining, voicing their opinions, like sophomore Allison Grann.
“The new yogurt seriously is not as good as the old yogurt, in my opinion,” Grann said.
“This broke my heart, to say the least, as a consistent yogurt consumer in HoCo, this has changed my diet in a multitude of ways,” Grann continued. “I no longer have the sweet, satisfying yet healthy snack that I always looked forward to with Stonyfield yogurt. This new Sunrise Farms yogurt is far too tart, and my peers have reported that it is grainy and the texture is similar to eating ‘sand.’”
Grann looked at the differences in the nutritional content of the two yogurts and acknowledged that Sunrise Farms is a healthier alternative, but was willing to sacrifice health for taste in this situation.
In one tweet by @unhyogurt to UNH Dining, the old yogurt account stated, “No chill….listen to the people and what we want [sic],” accompanied by a screenshot of a tweet by @KeepUNHyogurt to UNH Dining that said “No problems exist! The yogurt is great! #keepUNHyogurt,” which UNH Dining favorited.
“We love our UNH Students & as a community we hold a high regard to sustainability, locally sourced, & enhanced nutrition content,.” UNH Dining replied to the old yogurt account.
Jon Plodzik, the director of dining at UNH, gave some perspective as to why the yogurt was changed, citing a number of reasons.
For one, Sunrise Farms is hyper-local, as it is made in Brentwood, which is roughly 10 miles away from campus and Stonyfield Yogurt is now part of the large Dannon yogurt portfolio.
Secondly, Sunrise Farms yogurt “has better nutritional attributes over Stonyfield, such as it contains roughly half the sugar, is organic made from real local milk, contains half the sodium and offers 40 percent less calories per serving,” Plodzik said.
Lastly, Sunrise Farms comes in a more sustainable packaging.
“Previously we generated over 40,000 plastic quart containers because of Stonyfield’s packaging,” Plodzik said, “our new yogurt comes in a larger vessel, only generating 16,000 containers,” and “the larger packaging yields more usable product.”
Plodzik said guests might be noticing the less sugar and sodium in Sunrise Farms yogurt compared to Stonyfield.
As advice, Plodzik mentioned to “try mixing in some fruit or our organic granola from Grandy Oats until your taste buds adjust to the healthy change.”
