There have been occasional eruptions of wonder and disbelief in US social media circles about the fact that many Canadians get their milk in BAGS. There’s a reason for that. But that didn’t matter to International Milk Day social media commenters…
International Milk Day is celebrated in both Canada and the US. But when the Government of Canada posted a celeb-ratory message showing bagged milk in the plastic pitcher familiar to so many Canucks, US commenters went totally nuts.
A little history…
When Canada went metric, back in the 1970s, dairies started selling milk by the litre. But litres and quarts are quite dif-ferent in absolute size. That meant ei-ther sell odd-numbered metric volumes in existing imperial containers – or cre-ate a new metric container standard. The answer was a 1 litre bag meant to be held in a special plastic pitcher for storing and pouring. The compromise came about after the dairies realized they’d have to spend millions of dollars re-tooling their plants and shipping systems as well as their containers.
Here’s the deal…
You get 3 standard bags of milk in a bigger plastic bag. But the total volume of milk is 4 litres. The key concept is… The 3-bag, 4 L ‘master’ bags can be shipped conveniently in the old plastic milk crates. In fact, the whole system turned out to be much cheaper, even after re-tooling…
Just doesn’t ‘compute’…
US social media types were totally boggled by the revelation…
“Love you guys but those bags are comical,” one commenter grinned.
“No country that sells milk in a bag is a serious place,” said another.
“You have bag o’ milk, we have box o’ wine,” a third pointed out.
[Maggie’s got news for you: Canada, too, has ‘box o’ wine’. In fact, the world has had bagged/boxed wines since 1950. Curious coincidence: boxed wine is based on a plastic bag inner container that’s physically supported by the box.]
A British commenter offered: “Been to Canada twice and I have friends there and still cannot wrap my head around this concept. It just intrigues me…”
A continental correspondent simply said: “As a German… I am confused!”
And Canadians chimed in, in defence of the milk bag…
“I will always defend bagged milk. You just throw two in the freezer and pull it out when the current milk bag is less than 25% full to thaw,” one observed, helpfully.
One Canuck even suggested a reason for the disconnect between US milk lovers and their counter-parts ‘up north’: “I think I might just have too much Canadian blood to understand what’s so con-fusing about the whole ‘milk in a bag’ thing.”
And a third summed up the issue in four words: “Convenient, recyclable, and positively Canadian…”
So, there!
I hope this post has helped our American (and other) readers sort out their thoughts and feelings about bagged milk. It’s really a good thing. And it’s one aspect of our Supply Management system for agricultural products on which both Canadian producers and consumers agree!
~ Maggie J.