Changing consumer habits could spell the end of bagged milk
Changing consumer habits could spell the end of bagged milk
Milk is sold in bags in Ontario, Quebec, and the Maritimes, but it could be approaching its expiry date. Part of the reason is changing consumer habits.
"Consumption of milk per capita has gone down every year over the last 30 years," says Sylvain Charlebois, director of the Agri-Food Analytics Lab at Dalhousie University. "Actually, it's gone down by more than 20 per cent since 2015."
While bagged milk is often cited as a unique Canadianism, it's actually not sold west of Ontario. Those who prefer it, however, say it's more cost efficient and some even believe it tastes better.
With all the news about microplastics maybe we should go back to glass bottles.
Glass's issue is transportation cost, so you'll want to make milk supply more local...wait a minute, this is starting to sound like commie shit
Got `em
I would absolutely love the glass bottles.
I worry about breakage and substandard cleaning in the coming era of downsized food safety checkers in the Bitcoin Milhouse cabinet, but a few plebes dying from salmonella will fix that spending ... almost.
No different than our returnable beer bottles
It could happen. It seems to be working for Farm Boy.
Is it "changing consumer preferences", or is it the industry seeing an opportunity for shrinkflation.
Clearly it's the shrinkflation
Personally, I stopped buying milk. My daughter has a dairy allergy but I used to buy almond milk for her and dairy milk for myself, but I've switched to just almond milk for both of us to reduce my contribution to the beef industry. I'll still buy some dairy products like cheese and ice cream, but generally am trying to minimize my demand.
This.
So Canadians are giving up on milk and just drinking maple syrup now? Sweet!
I once made the mistake of telling my american coworkers that I buy over a gallon of fresh maple syrup from a local sugar shack each year and I was excited for spring because I was running low… I think I warped their perception of the canadian diet.
I tried explaining this to some Australian friends online and they thought I was trolling.
Name checks out.
As an American, I am jealous.
How will our kids get their daily dose of microplastics????!!!!
Don't worry, they don't have to try, it's likely in well water at this point. Guaranteed most of your store bought food probably has it too.
That's how you get your daily dose of Vitamin P.
Bottled water? Most mustards and ketchups? Or well, any liquids in a plastic container? They now sell even olive oil in plastic bottles. I avoid them like the plague. We all should.
You guys drink milk out of bags? We use glass, plastic, or cardboard jugs down in the States.
Some places do things a bit differently. More news at 11
It's not even all of Canada, just Ontario, Quebec, and the maritimes
In eastern Canada. I've never even seen it in western Canada.
Yea, it's shipped in a rectangular bag. It goes into a milk holder that holds the bag snug, and you snip the corner off so it pours like a spout. The jug that holds it provides the handle and stability for the bag. When the bag is empty, toss it, put the next bag in.
I love bagged milk, but I can't go through THREE FUCKING BAGS as a family of two.
They're more eco-friendly than the box or the jug, but I guess that goes against the goal of consuming more raw materials.
More eco-friendly? Where I am we can’t recycle any of the bags whereas the box and jug we can.
It's worth remembering that being accepted in a blue bag and actually being recycled are two very different things. Much of the plastic we've "recycled" over the years just ended up in landfills in China.
Remember the old "Where does it go?" "Away," PSAs from the late '80s and early '90s? Well, plastic recycling has been that, but at an industrial scale.
As a family of 5, we go through it easily in a week.
I've always wondered about the bagged milk... Don't they get broken a lot? I'm genuinely curious
The plastic feels a bit like a heavy duty ziplock bag, or piping bag material, made as a tube (so strong shape, structurally) then flat sealed on both ends. Quite thick so not that easy to puncture by accident. Once in a while there’s one that leaks but they get removed at the grocery store by stockers, mostly. It’s easy to spot, it just looks flat and at worst (if the hole is on the bottom), there’s a liter and some of milk all over in their fridge.
They’re super tough. Never seen one break.
It happens, but not very often. I used to work dairy in a grocery store, so you’d see it, fairly often, but usually we the workers would catch it (because the bag would be leaking).
I’ve never seen a bag pop, or puncture outside of that.
Bagged milk was available in MB in the late 80s/early 90s, but it disappeared some time after that.
Exactly. I'm not sure what metaphor fits best. If there isn't one, it's an odd combination of "pull yourself up by the bootstraps" and "chicken and the egg".
They can't claim there's no demand for it if it isn't on the shelves in the first place.
Times change, the customer is always right in matters of taste, etc.
It's funny we have no issues drinking milk from many animals, but people would be grossed out knowing it's milk from a human breast, and wouldn't drink it.
Edit: changed any to many
It's funny we have no issues drinking milk from any animal
Bruh we definitely have issues drinking milk from other animals.
Have you ever seen anyone drink Dog Milk? Cat Milk? Possum Milk? Pangolin Milk? Motherfuckin... Platypus Milk? They all mammals.
Oh yeah hit me with that shot of platypus milk. 🤤
What I'm wondering is, we have made strides to synthetically make milk with the use of yeast to make the proteins. So theoretically, we could make any milk. Why are we making cows milk this way?
Because we have an entire industry of cows that produce so much milk that they must be milked, or they will get sick and die.
Is this.. Milk outside a bag of milk outside a bag of milk..?
Tastes better 🤣🤣🤣🤣 those micro plastics sure kick up the flavor a few notches!!
Don't worry, those plastic jugs and plastic lined cardboard boxes are fulfilling your daily microplastic requirements just fine.
Nearly ever milk receptacle except for glass will be sealed with plastic. Microplastics are not a bagged milk specific problem.
I grew up with bagged milk but don't have it where I live now. With my two kids and I enjoying breakfast cereal regularly, our recycling bin fills up fast. I miss milk bags. So low waste. I remember we'd slit the end and use them for sandwich bags in our lunch bags. Or use them to wrap blocks of cheese.
I swear I remember my mum freezing sealed bags of milk for the cooler to keep meat cold on the way to the cabin.
Are these changing consumer habits mostly being driven by how insanely expensive and low quality milk products are becoming? Canadian cheese and butter are trash and cost an arm and a leg - especially when you get into goat and sheep cheeses that a lot of lactose intolerant west coasters prefer.
Having had the cheese available in America, I have to say better grasses makes better cheese.
I refute your assessment of Canadian cheese, my good man, and I shall be available by the flagpole after recess. It's a duel.
Why are you getting down voted so much? You are absolutely right. Canadian milk products (including milk) are complete garbage. We can thank our milk cartels for that, plus the really stupid regulations put into place over concerns of germs that basically limits the amount of raw or non-homogenized milk on the market.
How come most of Europe can produce far superior tasting cheeses and also consume fresh milk from milk vending machines, but there's an inane control on it in North America?
Shit bro getting downvoted by the dairy industry 😂
I just had a shower thought, probably dumb and I am tired, but how about pipes to deliver regular liquids/fluids? 🤔
I think I read somewhere in Germany brewery would have pipes to bars delivering a continuous supply of beer.
Now let's do that with ultrafiltered and/or ultra-high-temperature milk (less prone to spoiling).
How about adding pipes for beer (or some other alcohol or wine), cooking oil (whichever most suitable), and any other frequently used liquid I forgot?
If spoilage is well controlled, would that be a less energy intensive distribution method?
Keen for beer plumbing.
If we're piping allergens straight into people's homes, might as well have another one for peanut butter.
Just imagine the initial costs and maintenance costs of those pipes. It's already expensive routing water for people's houses. It's much less costly to do what was done in the past and have regular deliveries for those products in a reusable glass container and regular pickups of those containers. You also wouldn't really get a choice on the variant of the liquid you want like the type of beer, oil, or milk since everyone has their own preference or needs like with allergies.
Imagine if someone moves into a new house with a beer service line installed and they don't drink beer. The beer in that line would go bad and get really disgusting and probably contaminate beer in the rest of the line. The same goes for milk too. Imagine how disgusting a pipe filled with months old milk would be. Even ultra high temperature pasteurization won't save it. Imagine if you get a leak in your milk or beer pipe. Imagine if gets too cold or hot for the liquid and you get really warm beer out of the line or a slushy beer solution.
If you can guarantee those service lines will be used regularly, then I can see it being worth it since the maintenance costs and installation costs would be outweighed by the savings. Beer lines from a brewery to bars makes sense since the bars will be regularly going through a constant supply of beer. But on a regular consumer level, it's not worth it.
Tl;dr It's a logistical nightmare.
It's also a health nightmare. Beer and oil are some of the unhealthiest liquids you can consume (for different reasons, and in excessive quantities obviously), and having a functionality unlimited supply of them directly to your home would wreak havoc on the health of people with low self control or addiction issues. Like imagine an alcoholic living with the prospect of unlimited beer they could access at literally any time they wanted. That would be hell for them.
It's been proposed. Do a search for "soup tubes."
bagged milk is a pretty wild concept to me, but obviously there are a lot of facets of american life that are fucking bonkers to everyone else (and lots of us) so I cant really speak to it
Isn't milk kinda useless for humans after they stop being toddlers?
Oh ya, totally useless. Humans don't derive any nutrition from milk. It just teleports through their body.
It's milk designed for cows, not for hoomans
I've yet to see adults drinking milk naturally meant for humans(aka breast milk) the dairy industry really got us good in brain washing
I don't think any food is naturally meant for us, but that doesn't stop us from eating it. Humans are pretty good at digesting organic compounds for sustenance.
I got chu fam
This isn't a Canadian specific thing. Its common in most of the world.
But the problem isnt milk, its animal milk. Soy and oat milk should be fine.