# Brand loyalty for milk. WTF? **URL:** \ **Category:** Miscellaneous and Personal Stuff I Must Share\ **Created:** [June 5, 2014, 4:10am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/brand-loyalty-for-milk-wtf/690093 "2014-06-05T04:10:46Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![pkbites](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/pkbites/32/204_2.png) [@pkbites](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/pkbites)\ **Post date:** [June 5, 2014, 4:10am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/brand-loyalty-for-milk-wtf/690093/1 "2014-06-05T04:10:46Z")
I’m not talking about organic screwball milk or anything special. I’m talking about regular old [Moo Cow Fuck Milk](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tXS5GBuk-GQ). At the grocery store today I see Deans (1%, 2%, etc) and Bordens (1%, 2%, etc) milk. Right next to each other. Deans is $3.05 a gallon, Bordens is $2.59 a gallon. It’s the same exact thing, coming out of a cows teat. Yet I saw people, examine the signs of price, take take the Deans over the Bordens. WHY?:eek::smack::rolleyes::dubious::eek::smack::rolleyes::rolleyes: It’s the same exact thing, coming out of a cows teat. What possible difference could there be?😕:smack: I know it’s only 46 cents but that point is moot. What possible difference could there be? Explain brand loyalty to me in regards to regular old moo cow fuck milk purchased at a grocery store. Please.? ---
**Author:** ![johnpost](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/f17d59/32.png) [@johnpost](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/johnpost)\ **Post date:** [June 5, 2014, 4:21am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/brand-loyalty-for-milk-wtf/690093/2 "2014-06-05T04:21:03Z")
one cow is contented. ---
**Author:** ![ZipperJJ](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/zipperjj/32/211_2.png) [@ZipperJJ](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ZipperJJ)\ **Post date:** [June 5, 2014, 4:38am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/brand-loyalty-for-milk-wtf/690093/3 "2014-06-05T04:38:31Z")
Just about every single item in the store has an equivalent item for sale with the exact same ingredients. Even the berries at my grocery store have 2-3 brands (granted, all for the same price). Milk doesn’t just come out of a cow to a plastic jug. There is a process. The company has business practices regarding the cows and the milk. You can favor one company over another. You could even possibly detect a difference in the milk. Could be that Dean’s is closer or further. Could be they have been around longer and their name is more known. Could be that people like the way they treat cows. Could be that the plastic they use in their jugs keeps milk fresher longer. I can’t figure out why this is so confounding to you. Or perhaps you’re just feeling awesome typing “moo cow fuck milk” a bunch. ---
**Author:** ![drewtwo99](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/d07c76/32.png) [@drewtwo99](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/drewtwo99)\ **Post date:** [June 5, 2014, 4:41am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/brand-loyalty-for-milk-wtf/690093/4 "2014-06-05T04:41:13Z")
OP, milk is NOT all generated/collected the same way. In fact, it may be one of _the_ most brand-dependent goods in the super market. Your confusion is entirely unjustified. ZipperJJ already hit all the points, but it’s not “all the same milk.” ---
**Author:** ![pkbites](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/pkbites/32/204_2.png) [@pkbites](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/pkbites)\ **Post date:** [June 5, 2014, 5:06am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/brand-loyalty-for-milk-wtf/690093/5 "2014-06-05T05:06:12Z")
> [@ZipperJJ](#): > > Milk doesn’t just come out of a cow to a plastic jug. There is a process. The company has business practices regarding the cows and the milk. You can favor one company over another. You could even possibly detect a difference in the milk. > > Could be that Dean’s is closer or further. Could be they have been around longer and their name is more known. Could be that people like the way they treat cows. Could be that the plastic they use in their jugs keeps milk fresher longer. > [@drewtwo99](#): > > OP, milk is NOT all generated/collected the same way. In fact, it may be one of _the_ most brand-dependent goods in the super market. Your confusion is entirely unjustified. ZipperJJ already hit all the points, but it’s not “all the same milk.” Um, NO. You guys are so full of boloney I’m surprised you don’t explode. You are aware that I’m in Wisconsin, right? I have a bit of an idea of what I’m talking about. It is all the same milk, and no middle class schmuck in a Woodmans is concerned about how a dirty old cow is being treated or how the milk is being processed (which is the same as everywhere else.). It all has the same nutritional values and all tastes the same. I’m thinking people are just stupid and buy in to to ridiculous advertisement nonsense. ---
**Author:** ![aceplace57](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/aceplace57/32/3500_2.png) [@aceplace57](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/aceplace57)\ **Post date:** [June 5, 2014, 5:16am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/brand-loyalty-for-milk-wtf/690093/6 "2014-06-05T05:16:40Z")
I try to buy the local brand to support those farmers and hopefully its maybe a day fresher. I’m not sure where Kroger brand milk comes from. It may be shipped in from out of state. Coleman was in business for over a 125 years. It sold to Hiland Dairy in 2007. I have wondered if they continue getting milk from local farmers. > **[Coleman Dairy - Encyclopedia of Arkansas](https://encyclopediaofarkansas.net/entries/coleman-dairy-4425/)** > > Coleman Dairy in Little Rock (Pulaski County) is the oldest continuously operating dairy by the same family west of the Mississippi River and was listed ... > [@](#): > > A new dairy plant was built in 1946 at 5801 Asher Avenue, which was part of the original dairy farm. Sales increased to the point where the herd could not produce enough milk. At the time, Coleman had about 200 milk cows. By 1948, Coleman sold all of its milk cows and began buying milk from dairy farmers in the central Arkansas area. When Coleman Dairy bought C. S. Douglas Dairy in 1948, the combined company sold over 2,000 gallons of milk daily. ---
**Author:** ![Cat\_Whisperer](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/cat_whisperer/32/4839_2.png) [@Cat\_Whisperer](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Cat_Whisperer)\ **Post date:** [June 5, 2014, 5:23am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/brand-loyalty-for-milk-wtf/690093/7 "2014-06-05T05:23:27Z")
I try to buy milk at Safeway rather than anywhere else, because their milk tastes the best to me. Your mileage is obviously varying. 🙂 ETA: I should say, their brand of milk - no one else carries the same brand. ---
**Author:** ![SacFly](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/9fc348/32.png) [@SacFly](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/SacFly)\ **Post date:** [June 5, 2014, 5:44am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/brand-loyalty-for-milk-wtf/690093/8 "2014-06-05T05:44:36Z")
I’m not a milk drinker, but I use half and half in my coffee daily. There is a distinct difference between the cheaper stuff and the brand name stuff that costs 50c more. ---
**Author:** ![cochrane](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/cochrane/32/10441_2.png) [@cochrane](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/cochrane)\ **Post date:** [June 5, 2014, 5:45am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/brand-loyalty-for-milk-wtf/690093/9 "2014-06-05T05:45:15Z")
I guess my mileage varies, too. I’m with **pkbites**. To me, one brand tastes much like another and I buy the cheapest milk available. ---
**Author:** ![Miss\_Purl\_McKnittington](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/e9a140/32.png) [@Miss\_Purl\_McKnittington](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Miss_Purl_McKnittington)\ **Post date:** [June 5, 2014, 5:45am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/brand-loyalty-for-milk-wtf/690093/10 "2014-06-05T05:45:55Z")
Hey, guys who are not **pkbites** , the companies which market the milk in the grocery store don’t actually have much or anything to do with how the cows on the farms are treated. That’s regulated by the state, and there are state inspectors who go to the farms to make sure the farmers meet the standards that the state has set up. If the farmers don’t meet those standards, then they have a period of time to correct conditions, but things have to be really, really bad before any licenses are revoked. Contracts with milk haulers get broken sometimes if a farmer does something like accidentally milk a bad cow into the tank and that ends up contaminating a load, but you usually have to do something like that _repeatedly_ before a contract is broken, and IIRC, haulers have insurance to cover the costs of contaminated milk if they have to dump it instead of selling it. But Dean, Bordens, whoever don’t have any control over conditions on farms. How it usually works is that there’s a farmer, and the farmer gets licensed to produce a certain grade of milk, and then they contract with a milk hauler, who either contracts with a milk plant or owns a milk plant, and then distributors (Dean, Bordens, whoever) purchase the milk from them and the milk gets packaged or turned into stuff. Or the distributor owns the milk plant – there are a couple different paths the milk can go on, but there are lots of intermediaries between the cow and the grocery store, and Dean pretty much has shit all to do with how the cows are treated on the farms. It’s cute if they do that little pandering act, but they aren’t actually laying down the law anywhere. That’s the state inspectors’ job. **pkbites** , when we still had the dairy herd, we sometimes decided who to buy from depending on where our milk ended up or if one of the distributors had done something like dumped a lot of cheese on the market which lowers milk prices. We shop at Woodmans, too. 😛 If someone works at a particular company or has family that does, that might sway their decision. I’d think most people not affiliated with a particular company might decide based on price, but who knows. ---
**Author:** ![Thudlow\_Boink](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/thudlow_boink/32/320_2.png) [@Thudlow\_Boink](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Thudlow_Boink)\ **Post date:** [June 5, 2014, 6:00am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/brand-loyalty-for-milk-wtf/690093/11 "2014-06-05T06:00:34Z")
> [@pkbites](#): > > It’s the same exact thing, coming out of a cows teat. > > What possible difference could there be?😕:smack: It’s not at all hard to imagine how there could be noticeable differences between milk, based on what the cows are fed, how they’re treated, how the processing plant processes and packages the milk (and the milk you buy at the store certainly didn’t come directly from the cow’s teat—it gets pasteurized, homogenized, fortified, possibly skimmed). On the other hand, it may well be that there’s no detectable difference in taste, and customers are foolishly assuming that higher price must mean higher quality (or transferring brand loyalty from other products where it might matter more, like ice cream). I did manage to find comments from dairy farmers indicating that name-brand and store-brand milk are sometimes identical. [Here’s one cite:](http://thedairymom.blogspot.com/2010/09/milk-is-milk-comparison.html) > [@](#): > > The Great Value store brand milk and Reiter Dairy milk were produced in the same plant and are the exact same milk. The only difference is the bottle they are packaged in. I also turned up a [2012 article from Time magazine](http://business.time.com/2012/11/01/brand-names-just-dont-mean-as-much-anymore/) claiming that “Only 26% of consumers report a preference for name-brand over house-brand milk.” ---
**Author:** ![Inna\_Minnit](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/i/5f8ce5/32.png) [@Inna\_Minnit](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Inna_Minnit)\ **Post date:** [June 5, 2014, 6:17am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/brand-loyalty-for-milk-wtf/690093/12 "2014-06-05T06:17:38Z")
Asshole ex-boyfriend works for local name brand dairy. I buy anything else. ---
**Author:** ![SeaDragonTattoo](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/df705f/32.png) [@SeaDragonTattoo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/SeaDragonTattoo)\ **Post date:** [June 5, 2014, 6:17am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/brand-loyalty-for-milk-wtf/690093/13 "2014-06-05T06:17:46Z")
Are you sure it wasn’t just that the higher priced milk had a later expiration date? ---
**Author:** ![pkbites](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/pkbites/32/204_2.png) [@pkbites](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/pkbites)\ **Post date:** [June 5, 2014, 6:25am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/brand-loyalty-for-milk-wtf/690093/14 "2014-06-05T06:25:18Z")
> [@SeaDragonTattoo](#): > > Are you sure it wasn’t just that the higher priced milk had a later expiration date? Yes. :rolleyes: Next thing some of you are going to tell me that ketchup and peanut butter tastes _significantly_ different depending on the label. Or that Mobile gasoline makes your car run better than Amoco. Jebus Kripes! ---
**Author:** ![ZipperJJ](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/zipperjj/32/211_2.png) [@ZipperJJ](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ZipperJJ)\ **Post date:** [June 5, 2014, 6:28am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/brand-loyalty-for-milk-wtf/690093/15 "2014-06-05T06:28:55Z")
> [@pkbites](#): > > Yes. :rolleyes: > > Next thing some of you are going to tell me that ketchup and peanut butter tastes _significantly_ different depending on the label. Or that Mobile gasoline makes your car run better than Amoco. Jebus Kripes! So, they don’t. And yet you accept that all of those things exist as different brands at different price points. Why are you freaking out about milk? ---
**Author:** ![Isilder](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/i/cc9497/32.png) [@Isilder](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Isilder)\ **Post date:** [June 5, 2014, 8:02am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/brand-loyalty-for-milk-wtf/690093/16 "2014-06-05T08:02:51Z")
Is that Borden milk Borden Milk Products L.P. milk ? Then its Mexican owned. If it is Borden Inc milk, then its owned by Dean ! ---
**Author:** ![Girl\_From\_Mars](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/3da27b/32.png) [@Girl\_From\_Mars](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Girl_From_Mars)\ **Post date:** [June 5, 2014, 8:39am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/brand-loyalty-for-milk-wtf/690093/17 "2014-06-05T08:39:56Z")
Here in Australia a significant number of middle class people will choose to buy a more expensive local or smaller brand of milk (or organic but I think that’s outside your realm) rather than buying the much cheaper store brand because we are aware a dollar or so more for us is very little when the supermarkets are using their buying power to force a low price on farmers. Might be different in the US, but here milk purchase is a considered decision beyond simple price. Here’s a news story from last year about it. [Dairy farmers face ruin amid supermarket milk war - ABC News](http://www.abc.net.au/news/2013-02-13/dairy-farmers-face-ruin-amid-supermarket-milk-war/4517476) ---
**Author:** ![IvoryTowerDenizen](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/ivorytowerdenizen/32/17937_2.png) [@IvoryTowerDenizen](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/IvoryTowerDenizen)\ **Post date:** [June 5, 2014, 9:29am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/brand-loyalty-for-milk-wtf/690093/18 "2014-06-05T09:29:19Z")
> [@pkbites](#): > > Um, NO. You guys are so full of boloney I’m surprised you don’t explode. You are aware that I’m in Wisconsin, right? I have a bit of an idea of what I’m talking about. > > It is all the same milk, and no middle class schmuck in a Woodmans is concerned about how a dirty old cow is being treated or how the milk is being processed (which is the same as everywhere else.). It all has the same nutritional values and all tastes the same. > > I’m thinking people are just stupid and buy in to to ridiculous advertisement nonsense. I prefer to buy from local manufacturers or farmers when possible. We have a brand in CT called Farmer’s Cow which is all locally sourced milk from a co-OP of small, family farms. I used to pay a small premium to support that (when I lived in CT). > **[The Farmer's Cow – A group of six Connecticut family-owned farms!](https://thefarmerscow.com/)** > > Family-owned dairy farms > dedicated to putting a face on > New England agriculture. > Family-owned dairy farms dedicated to putting a face on New England agriculture. > Our Story > The Farmer’s Cow is a group of six family dairy farms working for the... ---
**Author:** ![Cazzle](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/cazzle/32/75_2.png) [@Cazzle](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Cazzle)\ **Post date:** [June 5, 2014, 10:03am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/brand-loyalty-for-milk-wtf/690093/19 "2014-06-05T10:03:59Z")
I was part of a marketing study group once (as one of the human guinea pigs), and the topic was milk. Some people swore that Brand A was sweeter than Brand B and they wouldn’t buy it for that reason - like, half the group were in agreement that they never shopped for Brand A because of the sweeter taste. I was in the “milk is milk” group. And yet, I’ve never bought Brand A since… ---
**Author:** ![Lsura](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/7993a0/32.png) [@Lsura](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lsura)\ **Post date:** [June 5, 2014, 11:18am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/brand-loyalty-for-milk-wtf/690093/20 "2014-06-05T11:18:15Z")
> [@pkbites](#): > > Yes. :rolleyes: > > Next thing some of you are going to tell me that ketchup and peanut butter tastes _significantly_ different depending on the label. Peanut butter does. I only (really, only) buy the Trader Joe’s natural unsalted because it’s just peanuts. Jif (and other typical grocery store brands) taste like sugary crap after having that. But then. I’m picky about my peanut butter. And I don’t touch ketchup. 😛 Milk, on the other hand…eh. As long as it comes in a size less than a gallon (and ideally less than a half gallon size), I’ll buy the cheapest one. Usually that’s the Publix brand. But then, I really only use milk for baking, almost never for drinking. [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/brand-loyalty-for-milk-wtf/690093.md?page=2)