Price of milk & the animal cruelty at factory farms - Fairlife milk - Coca-cola's brand

I came across a post on Reddit about an undercover investigation at Fairlife farms which is owned by Coca-Cola. I'm sure we've all seen these bottles of milk pop up on the grocer's shelf in the last few years - it's the gaudy bottle covered in a huge shrink wrap plastic label - like a cartoon label (do a search and you'll probably recognize the brand). I was always turned off by the label, it was too "markety". If I want milk, give me a basic bottle of high quality milk, preferably local.

www.reddit.com...

Where I live we have small dairy farms and some fair sized ones. I always figured out milk prices would be relatively low compared to states that didn't have much farming, especially dairy. IIRC the price is about $3.50-4+ per gallon for normal milk, add more for "premium" like organic or whatever. Stores often put signs up saying they sell at "state minimum price" for milk. Well in the discussion on Reddit there are people saying they buy milk for $2-$2.50 per gallon and that is in non-milk producing states! I can't believe this! New mexico, AZ! How can milk be so cheap in those states when I can walk to a farm and it is ~2x more expensive?

Now I don't agree with the low price, I mean milk cheaper than soda? Maybe if prices were higher across the board (like in AZ an NM & other states paying crazy low prices) then these factory farms might be more inclined to treat their animals better, though we know how large corperations work, which is why I often think smaller farms might be better. If prices were higher, maybe via tax, then inspectors could be paid to visit these farms and ensure animal abuse isn't happening.

So I'm wondering what you guys pay for a gallon of regular milk (skim, 1%, 2%, whole). Do you think a higher price would reduce abuse in the industry? I know it would allow more smaller farmers to stay in business and from my experience, there is less chance of a farm owner abusing their own livestock.

a reply to: DigginFoTroof

Different states have different costs of living, different economies. What a thing costs in one state will vary from state to state.

Here are the approximate costs from state to state.

As you can see, Pennsylvania is on the most expensive states for milk prices.

a reply to: DigginFoTroof


Here in northern Indiana I bought a gallon of whole milk last weekend at aldi,
I think it was $1.47..
Walmart is usually witching 10 cents of aldi' price.

I think the type doesn't matter except maybe for organic.

Now butter on the other hand is $3 a pound.
Walmart brand cheese is under $2 for 8 oz packages.

Like you mentioned, best way to buy milk is from known local farms or from trusted ethical suppliers.

The difficulty and expense of finding ethically raised and healthy meat/dairy is what led me down the path of a vegan diet.

In the end, veganism is cheaper and more ethical. Fair life was taken out of some stores where i live after the animal cruelty video leaked out. This is why they have ad-gag laws and prevent journalists from videotaping "normal " practices in these places.

originally posted by: Bluntone22
a reply to: DigginFoTroof


Here in northern Indiana I bought a gallon of whole milk last weekend at aldi,
I think it was $1.47..
Walmart is usually witching 10 cents of aldi' price.

I think the type doesn't matter except maybe for organic.

Now butter on the other hand is $3 a pound.
Walmart brand cheese is under $2 for 8 oz packages.

It does matter if that brand abuses animals.. organic or walmart brand alike...

Heathwise, there are hormones and antibiotics you gotta worry about.

a reply to: SilentSaturn

A vegan thinks eating meat is murder.
And I said the type of milk, "2%,whole,skim"" doesn't matter. The price was the same.

a reply to: Bluntone22

Ahh well i was thinking of the types of brand, additives, process of production, ect.. Nevermind then.

I'm allergic to milk, but will never completely stop drinking it. We buy a half a gallon a week of milk, which a cat drinks a quarter of. We usually buy organic valley grassmilk. It tastes really good. It costs five bucks for a half gallon, but if I am going to have problems with milk, it better be worth the headaches.

I get headaches from a glass of milk, plus the hershey squirts, a glass will raise my temperature up two degrees or more too. I can swell up like a balloon too. but I still partake. Same goes for ice cream, it better be worth it if I suffer with it.

I can solve the headache with a bromelain tablet or some fresh pineapple.

Milk has some good medical properties, but it has some bad properties too.

I tried the Fairlife brand, it does not taste right for some reason. I have drank milk and used milk products all my life even though I knew I was allergic back before I was fourteen. Milk has been pushed because of it's ability to stop the crying babies in our country, it has some opiate peptides that are really bioavailable. It does work good for keeping people peaceful and to help them work symbiotically, but some people just can't have milk.

a reply to: DigginFoTroof

I saw this and even "shared" it on social media (very unlike me) because of how sick the footage was.

The farm also claimed to not be killing any of the calfs for veal, but the undercover journalist followed one of their trucks being loaded with calfs and low and behold, it was a veal farm.

Bunch of unethical scumbags who are morally bankrupt!

a reply to: ketsuko
As with any government operation, when there are state controlled costs, it costs more
www.mmb.pa.gov...

Yes, PA has a government milk mafia.



Here is a PDF of PA government set minimum prices
www.mmb.pa.gov...

Some parts of the US agricultural industry are pretty poor from the stand point of animal welfare.

There is a way to produce milk from cows which does not lead to animal cruelty. Sometimes I am actually shocked by how far behind other developed countries the US is. Presumably the customers are happy with this state of affairs. Practice like this would whip up a storm in the UK.

The answer is not veganism. It's better animal welfare.

originally posted by: DigginFoTroof
So I'm wondering what you guys pay for a gallon of regular milk (skim, 1%, 2%, whole). Do you think a higher price would reduce abuse in the industry? I know it would allow more smaller farmers to stay in business and from my experience, there is less chance of a farm owner abusing their own livestock.

Here in W MI, which is more an agri-state than people care to admit, $2.09 last time I picked one up at Aldi and $2.49-ish when I get it at a small local chain that keeps most of their offerings local.
Prices have stayed within 50 cents of that in either direction since we moved here, a gallon used to run us $4+ in Tampa back in 2014. My jaw hit the floor seeing it for a buck and a half less a gallon up here, I still consider it cheap at $2.49.

I doubt raising prices will do much to curtail animal abuse. Abusive dicks still wind up employed where they can abuse critters, and people will still look the other way because it's "just an animal" or some other s# excuse.

The problem with a Fairlife boycott is it really does more damage to the suppliers than the parent company bottling it. There's small & indie dairy farms (not factory farms) here making their living selling milk to Coca-Cola that eventually becomes Fairlife, they've already spoken out via the news that they're definitely angry over the abuse, and nervous about being the collateral damage in the boycott. I can understand where they're coming from, people see the big name & think they're only hurting Coke. They're not, Coke can absorb the sales loss. The little farms supplying them can't, at least not quickly.

originally posted by: SilentSaturn

originally posted by: Bluntone22
a reply to: DigginFoTroof


Here in northern Indiana I bought a gallon of whole milk last weekend at aldi,
I think it was $1.47..
Walmart is usually witching 10 cents of aldi' price.

I think the type doesn't matter except maybe for organic.

Now butter on the other hand is $3 a pound.
Walmart brand cheese is under $2 for 8 oz packages.

It does matter if that brand abuses animals.. organic or walmart brand alike...

Heathwise, there are hormones and antibiotics you gotta worry about.

It's not the Fairlife brand doing the abuse, it's one of their contracted suppliers.
Big difference.
They do need to try to step up whatever welfare oversight they can bring in, that much I do agree with. But to say the company is directly responsible for what the contracted suppliers are doing when they think they can get away with it is short-sighted and not correct.

For example, there was one chicken farm here in MI supplying MOST of the eggs Mickey D's uses in their breakfasts in-state. Big-ass farm.
The building housing their hens recently burned to the ground and took a quarter million hens with it (and evidently not for the first time since they've been around) To say that was McDonald's fault is stupid, they had nothing to do with it. They only bore some responsibility in CHOOSING the supplier and not combing their facility & it's history over with a fine-toothed comb. The farm itself is responsible for the crappy wiring or whatever it was that lit the place like a wildfire.

a reply to: rickymouse

Have you ever tried milk from Guernsey cows?
It is mainly A2 protein.

a reply to: Nyiah

This is what so many don't understand about the bigger corporations.

They may put their brand and name on a thing, but they don't directly produce. It all comes through a supply chain. Usually, the parent corp of a brand does auditing of their supply chain to make sure it remains in compliance with all the regulations. You can be angry with Coke for letting some of their supply chain slide through the cracks, but you'd want to know what their auditing rules are.

For example, husband deals with a lot of auditing where he works from all over the world. US APHIS shows up to audit with no warning. The best they have is to know that APHIS will likely show up once a year. The EU equivalent to APHIS is far less adversarial. They usually send the same teams over, and those guys like to make a vacation out of it, so they'll schedule things up to 6 months in advance timed around local events they want to take part in.

So how does Coke do it? Do they audit by surprise? Do they schedule their audits? Surprise audits mean that the local suppliers are caught how they're caught. They always need to maintain audit readiness to some degree. A scheduled inspection on the other hand, gives them time to temporarily clean up their act and look good for those few days. Or does Coke even audit? Maybe that duty belongs to someone else?

originally posted by: Itisnowagain
a reply to: rickymouse

Have you ever tried milk from Guernsey cows?
It is mainly A2 protein.

There is A2 milk here, but I have not tried it yet. We found the Grassmilk and that does taste great but still gives me some of the side effects of milk. Here is a link to information about it, of course, I am not really concerned of these ratios as much as I am happy with the taste. Now, I have not identified what cows they are using to make the milk. I suppose it is a mixture of types of cows.

The A1/A2 concerns, I am not sure if that is as much of an issue as some say it is. It takes lots of time to evaluate if something is giving me problems, You have to test multiple times and identify other changes you have made. I have tested a lot of things over the last ten years or so and have learned some things but the only things I have found and verified is a few things.

I cannot eat bananas within a day of eating any nightshades or any root veggies. I am positive of that.

I cannot eat cranberries, I will gain three pounds within a four hour period, I get an uncontrollable thirst. To me it is almost like rat poison. Some cherries do that to me too but not all and I have not figured out why.

I should not eat tomatoes or any tomato sauce or condiment. That is the worst one of my issues. I also cannot drink orange juice or eat very many oranges.

I definitely have a high amount of the balsam of peru allergy issues. That does include the tomatoes and OJ because of their benzoic acid chemistries which I mentioned above. A little of this chemistry is medicine for me, a simple orange can really put my immune system in overdrive for some reason.

I cannot eat too much green stuff, I get orthostatic hypotension events from this stuff. Also, too much nitrites and nitrates of any kind are bad, including some of the nitrites in food.

I also have reactive hypoglycemia, like the orthostatic hypotension, it has been something I have had to deal with for over four decades. It is just an inconvenience to me. I just perfected how to try to stem the bad events by altering the way I eat somewhat. But I love veggies, and eating too much can lead to my death if I have an event at the wrong time, just like high sugar drinks spike my insulin which can cause a severe crash or shakes an hour afterwards.

All of these issues are somewhat related and I am trying to figure what exactly they have in common.

a reply to: rickymouse

I know people who are intolerant to milk from every breed of cow....... but they can drink Guernsey cow milk with no issues.

originally posted by: Itisnowagain
a reply to: rickymouse

I know people who are intolerant to milk from every breed of cow....... but they can drink Guernsey cow milk with no issues.

I'll have to try some of that A2 milk. It is usually more expensive than the Grassmilk here and that was not even a certified organic type of milk. I have researched a lot on the effects of feeding animals commercial animal feeds grown with roundup and pesticides and I am going to stay away from the milks that are commercial grain fed stuff unless it is organic.

Geneticly I cannot detox the glyphosates and organophosphates very well, the result is brain cancer. The majority of people do not have the problem I have with detoxing these, I am the worst one in those in my family that I have the genetic data from. My dad died from the brain cancer, after going through surgeries to remove part of his brain and chemotherapies and radiation back in the seventies. Hell is what it was.

The real question might be: why drink another animal's milk in the first place (especially past your baby years)?

originally posted by: R2019
The real question might be: why drink another animal's milk in the first place (especially past your baby years)?

For the same reason people make yogurt, butter, real whipped cream, ice cream, cheeses, etc from it.

Because it tastes goddamn GREAT. Especially next to the vast majority of fake/vegan options. Those leave a hell of a lot to be desired.