Canadians Drink Milk Out of Bags

[left-of-center2012]

If you’ve ever visited our neighbor to the north, you may have noticed something peculiar about how milk is sold in grocery stores. You won’t always find milk in a familiar carton or jug—but you may find it in a nine-pound clear plastic bag. But why? We need answers, Canada.

Drinking milk out of bags isn’t new—in fact, Canadians have been doing this since the late 1960s. Before Canadian food and packaging company DuPont unveiled their thin, plastic milk bags in 1967, they used glass bottles instead. Ultimately, all of those glass bottles weren’t exactly cost-efficient—and, with Canada’s conversion to the metric system in 1970, it was far easier to comply with metric units in bag form than it was to redesign and manufacture new bottles and jugs. So, the plastic milk bag was born. Today, drinking milk out of a bag is most popular in Quebec, Ontario and the Maritimes. By the way, this is why Americans refrigerate their milk and Europeans don’t.

It’s estimated that half of all milk in Canada is sold in bags. Surprisingly, Canada isn’t the only place where people drink their milk out of bags. Bagged milk is also a common find in India, China, Russia and plenty of other countries around the world. Of course, Canada doesn’t just drink its milk out of plastic bags because it’s more cost-effective—it also might be more environmentally efficient. Because a thinner bag of plastic is made up of 75 percent less plastic than the average milk jug and is easier to ship, Eater suggests that bagged milk is the way to go.

While there are a few places where this unfamiliar packaging is available in the United States, your best bet to trying bagged milk may be heading straight to Canada. Looking at your milk jug and wondering if it’s as interesting as bagged milk? It is! In fact, there’s a secret code hidden in all those numbers.

https://www.tasteofhome.com/article/why-canadians-milk-bags/

[Clash City Rocker]

1. Interesting. I knew that Europeans don't refrigerate eggs

For a similar reason - the US “pasteurizes” their eggs with a high pressure wash that removes the outer shell layer, to prevent salmonella, while Europe vaccinates their chickens - but I didn’t know that about milk. I’ve had milk in Europe and don’t remember it being lukewarm, but I guess it was.

Milk in a bag, that seems inconvenient. I guess they pour it all into a container when they get it home?

[kedrys]

3. You tuck the bag into a pitcher to support the bag

Clip off the corner of the bag and pour.

I live in Montreal and I buy coffee cream and the occasional milk in cartons.

[Foolacious]

4. Sometimes we do...

typically a leftover and reused glass jar. More often we put the whole bag into a simple plastic pitcher designed for this purpose, snip off the corner of the bag, and we're ready to go.

Also, we don't refrigerate eggs here in Mexico, either. (I know, I get around.) They're good for 2 to 4 weeks that way. We do make sure to wash them thoroughly before breaking them.

[utopian]

2. We had bags like that when I was growing up

In Vancouver, WA. Had a special pitcher and everything. Funny how that went away without my noticing till now.

[applegrove]

5. My mom didn't like waste and used to cut the top off the bags when they were empty.

She'd wash them out and dry them.. then use them to put sandwiches in and take them to work.

[Fiendish Thingy]

6. Not true in BC- I've never seen Milk-In-A-Bag here. Nt

[ironflange]

9. Don't have them here in Alberta either

We did have milk bags many years ago, but they disappeared. Good riddance.

[BComplex]

7. "this is why Americans refrigerate their milk and Europeans don't. "

I didn't get that part about "why" Americans refrigerate their (our) milk and Europeans don't? Because of plastic? I guess I'm slow, but I don't get the "why".

[tanyev]

8. Yep, I see that when we visit hubby's family in Ontario.

It reminded me that when I waitressed as a teen (in Texas), the restaurant I worked at had a milk dispenser that we loaded with milk packaged in plastic bags. That’s been many years ago, so I don’t know if it was exactly the same format, but it could make sense that it was already being packaged that way and someone just had the idea to market it to the public that way.