Milk price wars

Milk price wars

How does the price of milk affect you?
I was in Australia last week, where there’s a price war going on in the supermarkets. The focus is milk, which Aussies can buy now for as little as $1 a litre (NZ$1.35). Consumers are loving it – a staple food is available at a great price, meaning they can afford to buy more.
Contrast that with the situation here in New Zealand. Today when I checked, milk prices ranged from $2.19 to $3.60 per litre. (Interesting to note that it’s possible to buy 1.25 litres of sugary soft drink for 97 cents. Not the same, I know, but depressing nevertheless.)
The Commerce Commission has announced it is now ‘investigating’ whether it needs to carry out a formal probe of the retail prices charged for milk. Complaints have been made that we are paying more for our milk because of a lack of competition to Fonterra; the main milk producer. Farmers say they are not making huge profits on milk, and that forcing prices down would be bad for them. It’s thought the Australian supermarkets are using milk as a ‘loss leader’ and artificially reducing the prices to attract shoppers from the competition. It will be interesting to see what comes of all this, on both sides of the Tasman.
In the meantime though, for those of us who do the food shopping, we just have to make the most of what’s available, since milk is good food, a true versatile staple that provides valuable calcium and vitamins we all need.
I’m interested in what you’re doing – have your shopping habits changed with the price of milk going up; do you just buy it anyway and grit your teeth; and what do you do to make the most of the milk and other dairy products you use? Any great tips?

 http://www.healthyfood.co.nz/articles/searchcategories?vocabulary_name=hfm.categories.foodandnutrients&catalog_index=foodandnutrients_categories&vocabulary_term=dairyproducts