From the CBC:
“Here's why milk comes in bags in
parts of Canada”
Milk in bags — it's a kitchen
staple in some parts of Canada. Yet there are areas of the country where the
concept of four litres of moo juice coming in transparent, jiggly bags is the
most inexplicable thing about life in Eastern Canada. But what's to blame for the proliferation of
bagged milk in Ontario, Quebec, and Maritime provinces but not others? It's a
question The Cost of Living heard from listeners who were confused when they
had difficulty finding the same milk jugs in Ontario that are easily sourced at
any grocery store from British Columbia to Manitoba, or in the United States. "Whenever
I have American friends visiting, they think the milk in my fridge is totally
ridiculous," said CBC reporter Jonathan Pinto. "In Detroit, milk
comes in jugs." Even chocolate milk comes in bags in parts of Canada. The reaction is similar for people who come
eastward from western provinces. "Coming from Alberta, I'm used to seeing
milk jugs. I went through the store repeatedly and couldn't find them,"
said Shemma Yamach, who moved to Toronto after growing up in Edmonton. She
quickly realized the issue wasn't that every grocery store she visited was just
out of what she thought was universal — the four-litre hard plastic milk jug. Those
who use milk bags also know to have a reusable plastic holster for said bags. "After going to people's homes and seeing
that everyone had these bags of milk, and they cut them open on the corner and
drink milk out of this pitcher… well, I just thought this doesn't make any
sense. Why would they do it like this?" asked Yamach. The question was
echoed by Pinto, who works for CBC Radio's Afternoon Drive in southwestern
Ontario.
"How come some places have
milk in bags, and others don't?"
Enter the metric system. Milk
bags first entered the Canadian market in the late 1960s. However, Canada's
conversion to the metric system in the 1970s meant dairy producers needed to
replace and resize existing milk containers, which were measured in imperial
quarts. Retrofitting assembly lines or replacing heavy glass bottles was an
expensive prospect for the milk industry, and milk bags — which they were
already experimenting with — could be easily and cheaply adjusted. Changing a
one-quart bag to a 1.3-litre bag was relatively painless, so three-quart bags
of milk quickly became four-litre bags across parts of Canada.
Where my bags at?
Milk bags started to fall out of
popularity in many parts of the country as the hard plastic used for things
like large jugs became cheaper. Plus, in the 1980s, Brian Mulroney's Progressive
Conservative government relaxed rules on metric measurements. This combination
helped market forces take hold, and milk jugs slowly became more popular in
areas of the country. "I think the
shift took place less as a result of a movement away from plastic bags, and
more the attraction of rigid milk jugs," said Dan Wong, president of the
Western Dairy Council. Eventually milk bags became unheard of in provinces like
Alberta or British Columbia.
Why the bag for Ontario?
Ontario has remained an
exception. For decades, regulations in Ontario restricted the sale of more than
one pint or about 473 millilitres of milk in containers other than plastic film
pouches (aka bags), laminated containers or coated paper containers (such as
Tetra Paks). "I think it was a historical regulation that stemmed back to
the days when plastic jugs were very rare in the marketplace," said Dan
Wong. To sell milk in four-litre hard plastic jugs, a retailer or producer had
to implement a deposit or recycling system for those products and some stores,
such as the Becker Milk Company, did so. Consumers could buy milk jugs at those
retailers if they paid a deposit for the jug at the store. Bags did not have
this restriction, so mainstream grocery stores and milk producers stuck to the
bags for the most part. This explains why Ontario grocers almost exclusively
provided large quantities of milk in bags. In other markets such as Quebec or
Nova Scotia, bags and jugs have co-existed for years based on demand. The
Ontario regulation was amended in mid-2018, but consumer habits can take
decades to break, so expect to keep seeing white, jiggly milk bags at your
local grocery store for years to come. At least in Ontario.
^ Milk bags aren’t just in Canada
or for the Metric System. I first saw milk bags when I moved from Germany to
New York. They were used at my school. They reminded me too much of breast
implants, were difficult to out a straw into and flopped around on the table. I
stopped drinking milk at school – and I used to love having chocolate milk at
lunch at school. Milk bags seem like a huge waste (especially since you also
have to use a milk bag holder.) There is no debate: milk in containers (not
bags) are much better. ^
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