What’s going on with milk?

Anyone else noticed that it’s gone down in quality recently? I noticed that the shelf life of it had gone up a few months ago (easily find bottles with a week to go now whereas it was a few days before) but I’ve now noticed the taste is poor and it all looks very watery. This goes for multiple suppliers, supermarket and independent, and across the various options of fat content.

My morning mugs of tea just aren’t the same!

I’m not usually one for conspiracies, but this reeks of big farma sweeping stuff udder the carpet.

RM.

All of ours bought this morning at Tesco have dates of the 17th.

IME newsagent type milk doesn’t last more than a few days – Don’t think they run the fridges low enough. Maybe it’s turning quickly

Supermarket stuff, no change for us and we’re massive tea drinkers. Full fat if I’m allowed or semi-skimmed. Absolutely no pigeons milk (red cap)!

Good luck!

Drink black tea – and coffee

If you must have milk – goat’s or find a farm shop selling locally bottled.

IME newsagent type milk doesn’t last more than a few days

Same.  More than once I’ve had in-date unopened cheese that had gone mouldy also.  I spoke to the local shop about it, they said it’s been pretty common for them of late and they’re looking for a different supplier.

I still shake full fat milk before pouring, out of habit despite it being homogenized these days. I have heard on a podcast that breaking up the fat can actually change it’s flavour and not as healthy for you.

The milk from the farm shop on site is known as Cinderella Milk for it’s propensity to turn to cheese at 00:01 of the day after use by.

Filtered milk has a much longer shelf life, think cravendale, other brands are available

Dairy cows are in barns during the winter and fed on silage rather than green grass which affects changes the taste.

Hygiene has also improved which increases shelf life.

Tin foil hat on….

For years as a nation we have been convinced that skimmed or semi skimmed milk is better for us than full fat. Thankfully many have now seen the light and full fat is making a massive come back. However….. processors were in fact able to effectively sell the milk twice by selling skimmed/semi skimmed and then selling the cream as cream or butter. You may have notice the price of butter has rocketed as cream has become far less available due to demand for full fat milk. So maybe processors have found some way to extract the fat from the milk to the absolute legal limit of what constitutes “full fat” when they never used to bother, or else they are buying in cheap powdered dairy fat from somewhere else and mixing it in to up the fat content after removing the prime cream for butter. I don’t think they could add non-milk fats to the product and get away with selling it as whole milk (but I wouldn’t put it past a processor to try something like that!)

I’m not usually one for conspiracies, but this reeks of big farma sweeping stuff udder the carpet.

RM.

Despite being dead for nearly 7 years, Roger Moore is on the money with this I reckon.

What I don’t understand is why is pint of milk cheaper than a 500ml bottle of water? I was thirsty the other day and went to grab a bottle of water, €1.10, and saw a pint of milk was 80cent.

You’ve got to look out for the best milk and snap it up.

If you’re not quick it’ll be past your eyes.

It’s down to what people are prepared to pay for it.  People generally see water as a “lifestyle product“ that says something about who they are, so they are relatively insensitive to the ridiculous cost. Whereas milk is seen as just a basic commodity foodstuff to feed the family at the lowest cost.

I’ve bought milk rather than water too when out and needing a drink. In fact I did that on Friday when I went to London (couldn’t take a bottle of water from home as I was  going to a gig)

You know its got bad when you get a call to go in for a trial at Accrington Stanley.

You still drink cows milk? I’ve been drinking soya and oat milk for the last decade. It started off because it lasts so much longer but now it tastes way better than cows milk.

So maybe processors have found some way to extract the fat from the milk to the absolute legal limit of what constitutes “full fat”

From a tour of a muller site, the fat is removed from all mainstream milk, a carefully controlled amount is then re-added. the amount depends on whether you are manufacturing skimmed, semi, or full fat.

But at this time of year I would be looking at the cows diet rather than anything else.

As an aside, I watched as they swapped the Tesco cream pots to M&S, no break in flow, it’s cream, you really are just paying for the package.

I always buy UHT milk.

I prefer it to regular milk.

You know its got bad when you get a call to go in for a trial at Accrington Stanley.

Accrington Stanley? Who are they?

If you must have milk – goat’s or find a farm shop selling locally bottled.

Possibly the most STW answer to a thread I’ve ever seen.

Local milk from the milkman is as good as ever. If I buy supermarket milk when I’m.on holiday or similar it is always disappointing in comparison.

Good to see an increasing number of milk bending machines for top quality cow juice when away from home

Possibly the most STW answer to a thread I’ve ever seen

I’ve been on oat milk for years 🙂

milk bending machines

At least autocorrect changed it to something pasteurised clean.

Accrington Stanley? Who are they?

Exactly!

I also prefer UHT. Sooo nice on cornflakes.

Milk is cheap because farmers get screwed by supermarkets, they have very little control over the price they get per litre. If you can buy directly from farmers you should and that goes for everything not just milk.

Also the idea that the taste will change because it’s winter so the cows are being fed silage is incorrect. The majority of cows these days are kept inside all year round so will constantly be fed on silage + supplementary feed. The margins are so tight that herds have got bigger and bigger which makes it impractical to bring them in twice a day for milking, a lot also milk three times a day now. I grew up on a ‘traditional’ farm that most people would probably imagine when they think of farming. A small milk herd of around 40, a small flock of sheep, a small beef herd, a couple of pigs, a few chickens wandering around. Those days are long gone. Most milk herds now will be in the many hundreds, go big or go bust.

The milk cows you see out on the fields will be dry cows, that’s the only time most will ever see grass.

I always buy UHT milk.

I prefer it to regular milk.

Drink black tea – and coffee

If you must have milk – goat’s or find a farm shop selling locally bottled.

Why?
I rarely drink coffee, but usually I have it black, unless it’s a Mocha, and I drink green tea or a specialty tea like Oolong without milk; that would be horrid! I just prefer ordinary tea with milk, I’m not going to change because home random sez I ought to.
UHT milk is disgusting! 😝 Like using margarine instead of butter, horrible plastic stuff.

I buy my milk from whichever shop I’m nearest when I need it, usually 2x2litr bottles and put one in the freezer box of the fridge, then take it out and thaw it when I’m close to using up a bottle.

And no, I haven’t noticed any issues with the milk I’ve been drinking for months.

thenorthwind – just to help you understand as your post up there ^^^ is a bag of grollocks.

Goat’s milk is widely available.

Bottled milk – full fat but other (insipid) versions are available – from farm shops will, generally, come from dairy farms within 20/30 miles; has not been processed – other than minimally; has not been blended with milk from other dairy herds.

Also, as welshfarmer points put ^^^, there is little/no likelihood that the cream has been removed so you’re getting real, proper milk.

Carry on deluding yourself.

Peak STW?

F me – multiple far better candidates on page 1.

The milk cows you see out on the fields will be dry cows, that’s the only time most will ever see grass.

Not around here.

Although it’s more mud than grass right now.

Filtered milk has a much longer shelf life, think cravendale, other brands are available

Defintielty not the case here. I buy unhomogenised organic milk and yoghurt from an independent dairy and it lasts bloody ages, no sourness way past its date.

It’s not cheap but it does taste good and mean farmers actually get paid properly.

Milky milky. loveley.

Despite being dead for nearly 7 years, Roger Moore is on the money with this I reckon.

Roger Moo-re knows his milk puns.

I’m sticking with the dog milk. Lasts longer than any other milk, dog’s milk.

I’ve seen it suggested, not for milk but in general, that pretty much across the board companies have seen brexit and covid as basically an adjustment of the quality and service they have to provide/ a lowering of the service we’ll accept. Everyone knows prices go up fast and fall slow, it’s the same thing. We all accepted that phone service got terrible during covid, we knew call centres and offices were disrupted. But since covid, because we’d got used to it, it frequently hasn’t been brought back to the same levels. So frinstance loads of terrible chatbots got rolled out “temporarily” that are still in place, terms of service got dropped and never reinstated, wait times on average are longer (I saw my power company’s response times, went from 10 minutes on average to 40 minutes on average! My bank knocked a load of turnarounds from 24 hours to 72 “in these difficult times”, don’t think a single one has returned to 24)

And how that applies for food, look at fruit. People say and I think they’re right that there’s less choice, shorter dates, way more damaged and spoiled stuff. Covid started it then after brexit we saw all those empty shelves again.I’m a creature of habit, I’ve bought the same types fruit and veg over and over from the same chains for 25 years, and I eat it faster now but more of it spoils uneaten or was already dodgy when I’ve got it home, it’s teh first time I ever can remember feeling like it was getting routinely worse. Harder to buy a ripe pear or a crisp lettuc. Those bags of little oranges! Had a look in my local and literally half the bags had at least one moldy grey one in it. I mean, I’m also older and grumpier but it feels like when we returned to normal, normal had moved.

Conspiracy theory? Maybe but companies are cynical and smart and motivated to save pennies and they watch customers very carefully to see what motivates them, what puts them off, what makes sales and what doesn’t, that’s SOP. Why would they not take advantage of a fall in our expected standards, no different to taking advantage of a “temporary” price hike

we’re on the dogs’ milk. lasts longer than any other type of milk.

They sell cat milk in the supermarket… that’s gotta be wrong on a number of levels.

I drink quite a lot of milk, can’t say I’ve noticed any difference of late. Prefer filtered as lasts much longer. Hate non-homogenised stuff, no matter how much you shake it you still get blobs of cream and the rest of the milk is more watery as a result. Not a fan of UHT so keep an oat milk in the cupboard for emergencies.

I’m sticking with the dog milk

Are you sure that’s milk?

It’s not just milk, my wife commented that a few years ago we used to do a weekly shop – now we have to do 2 min per week as things just don’t last. I have a suspicion it’s Brexit related and the red tape delaying imports