My son asked me this the other day and all I could come up with was:
a) Maybe it is too expensive to sell by the gallon, therefore a smaller container makes it more appealling and affordable to the consumer.
b) It cannot get the shelf space in the cooled dairy section because of the gallon jugs of cow milk.
c) It has a longer shelf life and does not need refrigeration before it is opened, so it needs to be marketable in a form that will fit on a regular grocery store shelf.
It comes in amny more packages than just the square box. At my supermarket I buy my soy in your regular half-gallon milk cartons right next to the cow milk. I haven’t seen it in gallon jugs,
The smaller tetra paks can be store (unopened) for up to about a year or so unrefrigerated. So it’s possible that with a lesser demand for soy, it’s preferable for the supermarket to order it in the tetra paks because they have a longer shelf-life that way rather than risk the cartons go bad.
In an odd coincidence, I had a dream last night about soy milk. My roommate buys it because she’s a vegetarian, and I tried some, (IRL, not the dream) and liked it. In the dream, I was shocked to learn they put real milk in the soy milk for some reason…
I am lactose intolerant, so maybe I should start buying it…but real milk tastes so good! (Soy milk, while good, wasn’t as good…and certainly different, I don’t know if I’d put it on cereal.) I’m still content to take a couple lactase pills whenever I have milk or ice cream for now.
I assume it is just because they pack and store easier that way.
There is also the cost of refrigeration, especially for something that doesn’t need it. Why pay for refrigerators when you can put it on a standard shelf.
In my trips overseas, I’ve seen lots of juice sold in these shelf-stable boxes. I’d love to be able to stock up on juice, in a cupboard, rather then filling up the refrigerator.
Ah, the old soy milk dream. That is right behind being at school in your underwear and showing up for a test that you don’t know anything about. Classic and all equally frightening.
For texture VitaSoy has one that works pretty well. I also use that brand for cooking (it’s the only one I can get to thicken decenlty) and for latte’s. For cereal try almond milk and there is an oat based drink that tastes like vanilla pudding that’s awesome on cereal.
In general though, I find soy to be sweeter (it often has cane juice or some other sugar) and less velvetty on the tongue in recipies because it’s really hard to emulate the texture of butter fat. Pure soy milk that has no cane juice tastes rather tofu-like and is gross in coffee.
I like the tetra paks, I can buy tons at once and can store them on any old shelf.
Er, cows milk also comes in square waxed cardboard boxes for any size up to a quart, albeit ones that terminate in the more traditional “church roof” top (which was easy to form). Also, although more durable plastic jugs seem to have supplanted cardboard bottles, the small, almost cubical waxed cardboard package for small quantity liquid dairy (milk, buttermilk, light & heavy cream) is almost universal except for niche brands. Because the “bottling” machinery used by the American dairy industry is set up to make and handle this form of packaging, it remains dominant, and there is really no compelling reason to change it.
As for why soy milk comes in the particular form of box that it does, the answer is twofold; one is that it is a common form of packaging in Europe and Asia for room-temperature-stabilized liquid foods (including stabilized cows milk), and the form is conveniently compact for warehousing and distribution. This is particularly applicable to soya product, as it is harvested and processed in large batches rather than being produced in a continuous daily stream like dairy products. Because it may be stored for months and transported over long distances–unlike the typical distribution cycle for liquid dairy–this compact packaging form is advantageous for cost and space. Similar packaging is also now used for soup, juice, and other temperature-stabilized liquid food over more conventional, expensive, and space-wasting metal cans. It saves space for the warehouser and seller, and it saves space in your refrigerator.
Stranger
From my math classes, the most efficient form of packaging in term of maximizing the volume while minimizing the area of the container would be a sphere. That’s problematic for selling products, though, so the next best alternative is a cylinder, like the traditional Quaker Oats boxes.
So why don’t you see more cylinders? It’s marketing, basically. It’s a matter of getting more shelf space.
For refrigerated vs. not, then I’d supermarkets don’t want to refrigerate unnecessarily because of the increased costs.
Milk products which would spoil need to be kept cold. Beer and soft drinks which will be consumed are kept cold to increase sales, but my guess is that soy milk is thought to be less likely to fall under this category. In Japan, we tend to see soy milk sold refrigerated so YMMV.
While that’s true for a single container, when you have multiple products it becomes more cost effective to completely fill the container the containers go in. A right rectangular prism accomplishes that quite nicely. With the cost of fuel, and therefore shipping, these days, being able to efficiently pack your load is more important than being able to efficiently save on packaging.
Also, for things that are cooled, the less air between them, the easier they are to keep at a constant temperature. That’s why most ice cream comes in a rectangular container, too.
This is presumably the stuff responsible for making the soy latte my colleague purchased the other day taste so rank? She thought she would try soy, took one sip and went “EEEEW!”. Like a fool I had a sip to see what she was complaining about (I’ve had cold soy milk before and thought it reasonably OK) and found that it tasted like cardboard that had been chewed into pulp by coyotes and then stored in a homeless person’s shoes for a year before being sprinkled with stale instant coffee and mixed with stagnant water. EEEEEEEEW!