This stinks!
Raritan Township and Flemington residents have been complaining for years about odors from the Johanna Foods processing plant, a stench from rotting dairy and juice products that smothers the housing developments that grew up around the old dairy farm.
“Oh my God, it’s godawful,” said Kenny Burch, who has lived in the Carriage Gate townhouse complex down wind of the plant for 14 years. “It smells like something has died; you can’t breathe, and it burns your eyes.”
“It’s a putrid, fecal-type smell,” adds Burch’s neighbor, Justin Scheblein, who moved to Carriage Gate two years ago with his wife and baby daughter. “The way I would describe it is, if you were in a port-o-potty where a sewer burst.”
Although the stench is nothing new, that doesn’t make it any more bearable. The fines that the Department of Environmental Protection have levied against Johanna Foods over the years haven’t stopped the odors, and now residents fear the problem is about to get a lot worse.
Johanna Foods recently announced it has begun construction on a plan to nearly double its yogurt manufacturing operation, a project that the company says will take two to three years.
“When completed, the expansion to the yogurt manufacturing facility will provide Johanna Foods’ yogurt division with nearly double the current capacity and add several new product capabilities to meet growing and changing consumer preferences” CEO Robert A. Facchina said in a statement.
Scheblein, 34, started a petition drive to put pressure on Johanna Foods to clean up the air. Nearly 500 people have signed the petition on Change.org, which urges the “necessary authorities” to establish “strict regulations for odor control and forcing Johanna Farms to abide by them…”
Residents who live near Johanna Foods plant in Flemington say the stench from decaying yogurt and juice is overwhelming. Now their circulating a petition to get the company to do something about it.Richard Cowen/NJ Advance Media for NJ.Com
What began as a diary farm bottling milk in 1927 has grown to become one of the country’s largest distributors of fruit juices, drinks and yogurt, according to the company website.
The plant, which employs 500 people, produces well-known brands La Yogurt, Tree Ripe and Ssips, but residents have been complaining for decades of odors emitted by wastewater kept in a lagoon.
Johanna Foods is also one of the biggest ratepayers in Raritan Township. The company paid $685,276 in taxes and $859,117 in sewer charges in 2024, Raritan Township records show.
Elected officials in both towns appear reluctant to discuss the odor problem, at least not publicly. Raritan Mayor Bob King did not respond to repeated phone and email requests. John Lanza, the director of the Hunterdon County Board of Commissioner and a Raritan Township resident, also did not respond to repeated requests for an interview.
Flemington Mayor Marcia Karrow’s voicemail box was full at Borough Hall, as was her personal box at home, and she did not respond to an email request for comment.
Since 2002, the DEP has cited Johanna Foods for odors 16 times, along with numerous other violations, including hindering investigations, online records show. The company has paid over $100,000 in fines, but the more recent cases involving odors, from 2023 and 2024 are still pending, records show.
DEP spokeswoman Caryn Shinske said the agency visited Johanna Foods last week and the company has submitted a plan to deal with the odors. But the DEP will not release the report because it is only in the draft stage, she said.
“The DEP is reviewing a draft odor control plan submitted by Johanna Foods,” she said. “The plan is not final and may be subject to discussions and revisions and therefore may not be released at this time.”
Johanna Foods did not respond to repeated requests for comment.
Scheblein estimates he’s called the Hunterdon County Health Department nearly 100 times since moving into Carriage Gate. He leaves his windows closed “85 percent of the time,” and can’t hold a birthday party for his daughter because he fears the smell would overwhelm his family and friends.
“We’re like prisoners in our own homes,” he said. “When we bought the house, we had plans to put a deck on the back, but we squashed that. It’s not worth the money.”
Sometimes the county sends an investigator, and sometimes it doesn’t, he said. Sometimes they interview him and file a complaint, other times, they arrive hours later when the air is clear, at least temporarily.
“That whole process is horrible,” he said. “We’ve had responses within an hour, or sometimes you don’t get a call back at all. Sometimes it takes them five hours to get here.”
Our journalism needs your support. Please subscribe today to NJ.com.Richard Cowen may be reached at rcowen@njadvancemedia.com.