Cottage cheese has become increasingly difficult to find on the shelves of Aldi – and many have presumed its due to the unassuming ingredient going viral.

An eagle-eyed shopper recently lamented that they had been unable to buy Aldi Westacre Cottage Cheese, which retails for $5.49.

Taking to Reddita customer shared a post on the Aldi Australia sub-reddit titled ‘Where’s all of the cottage cheese?’

He said: ‘I haven’t seen the cottage cheese on the shelves in MONTHS, what is going on? National cottage cheese shortage?’

Other shoppers agreed that they too had recently struggled to find cottage cheese in Aldi stores. ‘Haven’t seen any for ages – so annoying,’ read one reply.

Daily Mail has contacted Aldi Australia for comment.

Several Aldi store workers responded to explain that it was perpetually out of stock at recently because customers were snapping it up the moment it landed on shelves.

‘Anything that arrives in store sells immediately,’ confirmed one Aldi employee.

‘We cannot keep up with demand,’ agreed another. ‘We literally get one allotment a fortnight and it’s gone in maybe two days.’

A third Aldi worker agreed, adding that they’d observed customers buying it ‘by the box’.

‘By the box OMG,’ replied the original poster. ‘How are they eating all of it before it goes off?’

An explanation for why cottage cheese is currently in such high demand can perhaps be traced back to its sudden prominence in healthy online recipes.

TikTok and Instagram have increasingly become a go-to outlet for healthy recipe inspiration.

But one viral recipe in particular – a hot honey sweet potato beef bowl – has exploded online in recent weeks, with the dish’s star ingredient calling for humble cottage cheese.

The simple recipe recently went viral when many food content creators, including Michael Finchmade the dish.

The hot honey sweet potato beef bowl calls for roasted sweet potato, beef mince seasoned with nacho spices, avocado, hot chilli honey and, of course, cottage cheese.

‘Honest to god, I didn’t think I was going to like the whole cottage cheese thing but with the hot honey mixed with it, it’s so good,’ Finch said as he taste tested the creation.

But as Aussies raced out to supermarkets to purchase the required ingredients to recreate the dish, many found themselves empty-handed when searching for cottage cheese.

The latest Reddit post about Aldi’s cottage cheese shortage alluded to this viral recipe as an explanation for why cottage cheese has suddenly become so hard to find.

‘All the Instagram recipes call for it (cottage cheese) for the protein,’ declared one reply.

‘Someone start a new trend,’ another joked. The original poster of the thread responded, saying: ‘PLEASE I’m begging lol.’

Those who weren’t in the know about the sudden popularity of cottage cheese in healthy online recipes felt enlightened after hearing this explanation.

‘Ah, that makes so much sense,’ one person said. ‘At the gym today I heard a couple of women talking about cottage cheese and protein.’

The recent Reddit thread saw some commenters offering the alternative suggestion of swapping cottage cheese for ricotta.

‘Buy ricotta – cottage cheese is disappointing!’ championed one person.

Another argued that it was also a better choice because ricotta has ‘fewer ingredients’ than cottage cheese.

‘I buy the “smooth ricotta” at Aldi. It’s a much softer texture and taste,’ the person added. ‘Aldi also sell a basket of fresh ricotta – drain it and then put in a plastic container with lid into your fridge, and add a little salt.’

‘But cottage cheese has a higher protein content,’ they conceded.

As a last-ditch solution, some even suggested trying to make your own.

‘I was fed up of not being able to find cottage cheese as a staple anymore,’ one person explained. ‘My homemade one tastes so much better and is cheaper – 3L of milk gets me about 10 days’ worth of fresh cheese.’

With no signs of the trend slowing down, cottage cheese may remain the hottest 2025 Aussie supermarket commodity that no one ever predicted.