Trends & possibilities school milk still a hit - Elopak

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School Milk: a point of view People who know me, and have read my editorial columns in Dairy Innovation magazine and, before that, in Milk Industry magazine, will know that I get rather passionate about School Milk and School Milk schemes. So why? Well it certainly isn’t from my experience of having milk at school when I was a youngster. I was one of those children living in that era when milk was delivered to your school early in the morning and left out in the playground in full summer sunshine – so when it was time for your morning break the milk was nice and warm, and very much ‘off’. Some people will tell you the experience turned them off milk for life. One of the key reasons I support School Milk is that, despite what the anti-milk lobby and the dairy detractors claim, I believe milk is good for you – an important part of a healthy balanced diet. It is especially good for growing youngsters and teenagers. And it is not just the calcium for strong teeth and sturdy bones. One of my favourite advertisements was one from the Dairy Council in England in the 1980s that featured a pint glass milk bottle that was filled with coloured layers of tablets. These were labelled to illustrate the phenomenal range of vitamins, minerals and other ingredients that milk had to offer. The headline read: It’s a wonder there’s any room for the milk. Written by Geoff Platt; Editor of Dairy Innovation magazine It is an amazing range of good things, good things that are so often ignored in the debate about fat and the drive, in some quarters, to remove just about every gram of fat from our diets. There has been lots of research to show the value of this daily drink in keeping children bright and alert, increasing concentration and helping them to get through the day. School milk programmes and school milk subsidies can, of course, be very political issues in some countries. Schemes are not always easy to set up or administer and it is always easy to find reasons why we should not do it. Some dairies companies, I suspect, regard it as a bit of an inconvenience – something that does not add a great deal to ‘the bottom line’. While that may be true in the short term, I believe School Milk has the potential to bring a long term advantage. Establishing the milk drinking habit in those early years can help establish an important habit in childhood that * As a keen supporter of School Milk and a regular contributor to the business-based social networking site LinkedIn I launched the School Milk Network group on LinkedIn last year. It is open to everyone who is involved in school milk and school meal schemes or supports the school milk idea – dairy farmers, dairy processors, members of dairy organisations, nutritionists, dairy industry suppliers, people from government departments and NGOs that work on school milk projects. If you are a member of the LinkedIn community, then why not join the School Milk Network? 10 3 – 2011 Trends & possibilities
will be taken into adulthood and will stay with that person throughout their life and will have positive implications for the future of the dairy industry. In many countries, the development of school milk programmes has been associated with the growth of the national dairy industry. A survey by the Food & Agriculture Office of the United Nations showed that the importance of school milk within a national liquid market varies from country to country. In some countries it can account for as much as 25%. This figure seems to drop quite markedly in some of what we describe as ‘developed’ countries. In reporting School Milk activities, it is heart-warming to see the efforts being taken by governments in ‘developing’ countries to expand and improve their School Milk schemes – or introduce them for the first time. I can’t help but ask why is it that the developing countries often put the developed countries to shame? A major part of reporting School Milk activities centres around World School Milk Day – an initiative started by the FAO a decade ago, when School Milk is celebrated around the world on the last Wednesday in September each year. It is great to see the variety of activities and initiatives that take place and the way that so many people are involved. And it is great when dairy industry suppliers like Elopak support that initiative. In my editorial column, when we launched Dairy Innovation magazine in 2005, I said School Milk was a subject the industry ignored at its peril. I still believe that today. Geoff Platt has been reporting and writing about the dairy industry since the early 1980s. In 1999 he joined the staff of the National Dairymen’s Association as Editor of Milk Industry. He held that post for the next six years, during which time the trade organisation merged with the Dairy Industry Federation to become the Dairy Industry Association (DIAL) and then changed again into the industry-wide body, Dair y UK. In 2005 Geoff joined Zenith International Publishing, recently renamed FoodBev Media, where he helped to launch Dairy Innovation. Passionate about dairy, and a keen supporter of School Milk, Geoff is a regular speaker at Global Dairy Congresses and other international dairy events. He is also active on LinkedIn – where he launched the School Milk Network group - and on Twitter. school milk still a hit 3 – 2011 11
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Trends & possibilities school milk still a hit - Elopak

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