Okay, who was the DUer complaining yesterday morning that they desperately wanted a cold glass of milk...out of a bottle? Do they work for CNN or the milk industry, or are they just ahead of the trend?
Also big news item about milk/calcium being important in prevention of colon rectal cancer.(why don't they EVER mention that higher amounts of calcium exist in certain veggies like broccoli?)
Thursday, July 22, 2004
Milkman Ron Panneton and his wife are expanding to meet the demand for the glass bottled milk.
CONCORD, New Hampshire (AP) -- When he became a milkman in 2002, Ron Panneton knew the numbers weren't good.
Everything indicated he was jumping into a dying industry. Home delivery once accounted for most milk sales. By 1963 it was about a third. By 2001 it represented a paltry 0.4 percent.
Two years later Panneton is indeed struggling -- to keep pace with demand.
Interest in his glass bottled milk is so strong that his Barnstead-based Catamount Farm is turning away customers until he and his wife add a second truck and hire their first employee later this summer. His customer list has doubled to 200 from a year ago.
It's a story repeated nationwide as dairy delivery bucks the supercenter trend and grapples with an unexpected demand that industry officials attribute to a combination of nostalgia, convenience and taste.
"I don't know why, but in the glass bottle, it just tastes so good," said Robin Hempel, a Gilmanton woman who stopped Panneton on the street recently to arrange home delivery after seeing the sign on his truck.
..snip..
But John Rourke, a dairy marketing specialist at the USDA, said the market has changed recently, albeit slightly. Though new data won't be available until fall, he expects to see home-delivered milk sales plateau or even increase slightly.
He said it likely is due to greater consumer interest in local and organic products, not to changes in milk consumption, which fell half a gallon to about 211/2 gallons per person last year, part of a decline that began in the 1970s.
Most dairy delivery companies don't raise cows or produce their own milk. Like Panneton, they often tout milk from local farms, much of it produced organically or without the use of added hormones. Such products are part of a growing natural foods market....cont'd
http://www.cnn.com/2004/US/Northeast/07/21/milkman.ap/index.html
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