Bagged milk could be gone within 10 years, Canadian food expert says

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Got milk?

Well, bagged milk could soon — as in a decade — become a thing of the past in Canada, said Sylvain Charlebois, director of the Agri-food Analytics Lab at Dalhousie University.

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“Essentially, what’s going on is that demand for the four-litre format (three bags of 1.3 litres each) is dropping for a variety of reasons,” said Charlebois.

“We have families that are smaller. Demand per capita is dropping in Canada. Fewer people are drinking milk in adulthood. There are more dairy alternatives available out there. My guess is that we could actually see these bags disappear within a decade or so. I think it has a lot to do with demand, which is shifting.”

One indicator is that the four-litre format of bagged milk is slightly down in Quebec from 50% of volumes sold in 2022 to 49.7% in 2023, according to a report in La Presse.

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“It was a reporter from La Presse, she called me and said, ‘Demand is down – but not much,’” said Charlebois.

“It’s a huge hypothetical here.”

Bagged milk, first introduced in the 1960s, is mainly available in eastern parts of the country like Ontario, Quebec and the Maritimes.

Meanwhile, Charlebois said demand for other kinds of milk — soy, oat, almond, etc. — “has grown in the double digits for a few years now. Growth is pretty significant. With immigration, we estimate the majority of immigrants coming to Canada, and there are lots of them, are lactose intolerant. So intolerances are certainly a driver. But consumers are concerned about the environment, animal welfare.”

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There’s also the anti-plastic movement.

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“That’s the other issue — perhaps this approach to packaging milk will not age well over time because it is indeed plastic, yeah,” said Charlebois.

In the meantime, there are upsides for having bagged milk.

“Smaller bags are very helpful with people with disabilities, for example, or with arthritis,” said Charlebois.

“A (two-litre) jug is not easy to lift if you’re a child. The other thing that people love with bags is the fact that very rarely have we seen problems related to safety and quality with bags. We have heard from many, many Canadians saying they’ve seen their milk go sour even before opening their cartons of milk. But I haven’t heard anything with bags in particular.”

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