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Highlands Today

New Jug Boosting Milk Sales

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By BILL ROGERS

Highlands Today

Published: July 20, 2008

AVON PARK - Like the manual typewriter and the eight-track tape, the milk crate may disappear from existence.

What is driving the crate the way of the dinosaur is a square-shaped milk jug that Southeast Milk Inc. has invested in. The president of the dairy cooperative is Joe Wright of Avon Park.

Southeast Milk bought the technology for the stackable that is being made in Green Cove Springs, which is south of Jacksonville. Southeast has some territorial rights to the product, Wright said.

The jug has appealed to the warehouse stores, such as Costco and Sam's, and perhaps eventually will be attractive to convenience and grocery stores, Wright said.

"Their shopper is used to buying in bulk and seeing it presented a little different," he said.

As a result of the design, the jugs can be stacked and more milk can be shipped on a truck. The expense of lost or stolen crates, which Wright said can run into the hundreds of thousands of dollars, is no longer an issue.

"It's logistics and somebody like a Costco or a Sam's squeezes dollars out of those logistics," Wright said. "We don't price milk to the consumer; Costco or Sam's does it. But they squeeze cost out of the system so they can present fresh milk in bulk volume at a price that is very attractive, very competitive.

Wright believes there are approximately 18 Costcos in Florida and another 18 in Georgia and North Carolina and South Carolina where the jugs are now being sold.

Creative Edge, which is a subsidiary of Superior Dairy in Canton, Ohio, designed the jug. Wright said the company was trying to carve a niche and do something different.

In addition to the shape, the stackable has a tamper-proof seal and the plastic used is a little thicker than other milk jugs.

"It's a different kind of processing," Wright said. "The thing that makes this jug is a bold-mold machine, so it is a different kind of blow mold."

The packaging has only been out since February, and Wright said the blow-mold machine in Green Cove Springs has reached capacity. He noted that sales could double with the addition of a second machine. It will take several months to get the blow-mold because it is a custom made.

"It enabled us to make inroads and expand our business where we otherwise couldn't have," Wright said. "If everybody else has the same milk jug, the only thing you can do is go out and cut price. Then they will cut the price to match it and it is a vicious race to the bottom. At the end of that process you may or may not have more sales, but you are probably not going to have more money.

"In the long run if we get paid a fair price on our farm and if we break even or break even and make a penny on the processed milk, that's fine," he said. "But at the end of the day, we are farmer-owned and we want to sell our milk. So to have growing milk sales with this packaging we are very excited."

There are one-gallon and half-gallon stackables. However, Wright said the half-gallon jug is not yet available in Florida.

Reporter Bill Rogers may be reached at 386-5825 or wrogers@highlandstoday.com

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