Unfiltered Story #104906

(I’m working the closing shift one night and a young woman approaches the counter about half an hour before closing. It’s late so I’m a little out of it).

Customer: “Could I please have a quarter kilo of the Jarlsberg (Swiss) cheese please?”

Me: “Sure.”

(I take the large block of cheese and am about to cut her a quarter kilo when she stops me):

Customer: “Excuse me, it doesn’t contain animal fat, does it?”

Me: (not sure if I heard the customer correctly) “Er… I’m sorry, what do you mean?”

Customer: “Well it says here -” *pointing to the ingredients list in small print on the unopened package of cheese, which I’m genuinely impressed she can read through the case* – that it contains 28% fat. It’s not animal fat, is it?”

Me: “…Um, well,.. it’s cheese…” *Customer stares blankly* “..You know, it comes from milk? Which is kinda fatty…”

Customer (wide-eyed, with genuine surprise from what I can tell): “Oh really??”

Me: (still not 100% sure if this is some sort of joke, but keeping my tone professional and friendly just in case) “Well, yeah. Cheese is made from milk, which is pretty fatty and creamy, and they introduce bacteria to it that makes it go sour, but it’s healthy bacteria so we don’t get sick from it. The fat comes from the milk.”

Customer: “But it’s not, like, animal fat is it?”

Me: “Well, it.. *does* come from a cow…”

Customer: “But it’s not fat from, like, cow meat that’s cut off and added to the cheese right?”

Me: “I’m pretty sure all the fat comes from the milk, but I could be wrong.” (In the customer’s defense, the ingredients list on the package was badly worded – it said milk, bacterial culture, water, salt and some other things and then lastly: Fat (28%), as if the fat was also a separate ingredient added in and not part of the milk. This – combined with the customer’s confusion – was completely throwing me off at this point, and my tired brain was beginning to wonder if there indeed was some secret fat-adding process to cheese that I didn’t know about).

Customer: *slightly hesitantly* “All right, I’ll take it.”

(It was only after I gave the customer her cheese and she walked away that I realised she was probably inquiring whether the cheese was vegetarian – making sure that no cow had died in the process of making it. Oops.)