One school district in Florida is experiencing what many districts across the nation are – an increase in school milk sales when that milk is packaged in plastic containers.
Milk, the lunchtime staple long sold in cardboard cartons, is getting an upgrade in Martin county schools, where students this year can buy pint-sized plastic bottles and 8-ounce bottles known as “chugs.”
“The kids swear that it tastes different, that it’s colder,” said Rae Hollenbeck, the district’s director of food and nutritional services. Last year, when the district introduced the chugs to middle schools, milk consumption jumped 10 percent to 15 percent, Hollenbeck said.
Even in elementary schools, where younger students drink considerably more milk than older students, consumption picks up with plastic, research shows. Last year at Bessey Creek Elementary in Palm City, for instance, consumption jumped 5 percent after plastic bottles were offered, Hollenbeck said.
High schools also have milk vending machines, which school officials bought with a $20,000 grant from the Dairy Council of Florida. An additional $36,000 grant paid for recycling bins for the plastic bottles and refrigerated cases to keep the milk chilled in the lunch lines at middle schools.
The cases, also called “merchandisers,” are plastered with white-and-black cow logos and the catchphrase “Got Milk?” They look a lot like the soda cases found at convenience stores and supermarket checkout lines.
“Making milk appealing in these merchandisers and at eye level entices students to remember to want to take the milk,” said Jennifer Whittaker, the council’s director of school marketing.
Seven other Florida school districts have joined the dairy council’s New Look of Milk program, offering plastic milk bottles in the new refrigerated cases. The trend is taking off nationwide, too. Of about 1,200 school districts the School Nutrition Association surveyed, 36 percent said their high schools offer milk in plastic bottles. About 28.4 percent of middle schools offer the bottles, and about 14.2 percent of elementary schools do, association spokesman Erik Peterson said.
Besides regular and chocolate milk, schools now offer vanilla- and strawberry-flavored milk. Hollenbeck, the district’s food director, said the offerings could grow even more. At a conference this summer in Chicago, she tried bubble gum-, orange- and cinnamon-flavored milk.
If children drink more milk, it means they probably drink fewer sugary sodas and sports drinks, and that’s a good thing, said registered dietitian Sarah Krieger, a spokeswoman for the American Dietetic Association. Milk packs plenty of protein, B vitamins and calcium. Sodas are full of empty calories.