Particularly popular in Canada
Still saving a 1$~ / 12%
Sealtest 4L = $5.89
Sealtest 2L = $5.18, or $10.36 for 4L as 2L cartons.
2L carton was about the same price.
Walmart.com has 3.78L for US$2.52 in Buffalo, ~100 miles from here in Toronto, making our milk 62% more expensive.
(In cheese the US regains the advantage though - Quebec cheese is decent , but doesn't hold a candle to European cheeses that are available in US grocery stores for much lower prices)
The US is right next door to… everywhere here. Anything we can do, they can _probably_ do cheaper. Do we want access to basic staples to be at the whim of US policy and production?
I know we’re basically joined at the hip anyway (our economy is basically as a cheaper source of manufacturing and services for the US… and resource extraction for the US), but if we want to keep up the idea of being a separate nation it’s probably good we can at least provide basic staples for our own populace.
> The dairy sector is different because since the 1970s it has been subject to supply management. Basically, it’s a government-sanctioned cartel: The Canadian Dairy Commission dictates the precise amount of milk produced every month in the country and uses this top-down control to keep dairy prices artificially high. Similar systems are also in place for chicken, turkey and eggs.
> The Canadian dairy sector can do this without fear of international competition because foreign imports are subjected to prohibitive tariffs of up to 300 per cent; this is why border guards will often explicitly ask you if you have any cheese in your luggage (and why the police keep busting cheese-smuggling rings).
https://nationalpost.com/news/canada/first-reading-why-milk-...
1l carton €1.15
1l plastic bag: €0.79
This is the same milk from the same producer from the same store. On a shelf these two products will be next to each other.
Same store also sells a €0.59/l milk in plastic bags that basically tastes identical. (They probably buy it from the same place the others do.)
So if you're shopping cheap you can pick the €0.59/l or €1.15/l milk here.
As well, unlike Tetrapak, empty bags don't have to be cut up or compressed. They just naturally take up so little space.
We really should ship more liquids in bags.
In a 4L bag, there are usually 4 1L bags. It doesn't take a week to get through 1L.
If one is obsessed with absolute freshness, one can attach a clip to the snipped corner, but I don't know anyone who does this.
For us it does, though, it was always a problem for me when I lived in Canada. Here in the EU my UHT milk can stay open in my fridge for several weeks and still be good.
I also prefer the taste compared to pasteurizer milk, since that point will inevitably be brought up by people who always find the milk they are used to to be the only good milk that exists. I prefer UHT because it tastes closer to raw milk.
Milk in bags probably last more than a week (the opening is very small so there's not a lot of air that gets in), but I've never not finished milk in under a week so I can't say.