Stonyfield Vanilla Truffle Yoghurt

I’ve just completed a weird and slightly amazing food quest that involves Stonyfield Farms yoghurt, my local Seattle Whole Foods and their Stonyfield local distributor.

A few months ago, I was shopping at Madison Market in the dairy section and noted a Stonyfield Farms yoghurt flavor, vanilla truffle, which I’d never tried. I bought it, ate it and thought I’d died and gone to heaven. It was a swirly mix of vanilla and chocolate yoghurts. Sweet and rich without being cloyingly so. I went back several times to this market to find it, but never did.

I shop more regularly at Whole Foods and never saw the flavor there either. So I went to the Stonyfield site and looked up the SKU# for vanilla truffle. I started with a Whole Foods staffer in the dairy department. He looked up the item in their dairy supplier’s catalogue and said they don’t carry it. I asked for the supplier’s name so I could call them and request that they carry the flavor. After calling the local Washington supplier’s office and hearing a phone message that they don’t do customer service (a bit odd I thought), I then called the California office of the same supplier. They told me that vanilla truffle was a product they carried. I asked her if she could suggest to the staff member who worked on the Seattle Whole Foods account that she contact the store and ask them to order it.

Yesterday, I visited the store and guess what? They had it. I bought four containers and hope they’ll keep stocking it because I’ll keep buying it. Thanks to Lare, the Whole Foods dairy buyer and to Stonyfield’s distributor for figuring out a way to get me the flavor I craved. That’s good customer service!

If your local market carries Stonyfield yoghurt but not vanilla truffle, ask them to order it. And if they tell you their distributor doesn’t carry it, don’t necessarily believe them.