Milk

Today we went across the border. While there, we picked up two gallons of milk, in plastic jugs, for a cost of $3.32 USD each, or $6.64 total. In SJ, we can only purchase up to a 2 litre amount in handy plastic jugs and those cost us $3.72 CND each. Since the two dollars are close to the same value right now, that indicates that in America, an hour and a half away from here, in a location that does not have a bottling and distribution center in the same city, we pay approximately the same amount of money for almost twice the amount of milk.

The other thing we cannot fathom is why Baxter, the main milk producer/distributor available in SJ, does not provide larger than a 2L plastic jug. Oh, you can purchase more milk than that, you just have to buy it in bags. Yes, you read that correctly, bags. You can purchase a 4L bag (which, in almost every case, is actually two 2L bags sold together in one larger bag), but you then have to pour that milk into something else in order to drink/use it effectively.

Now, the Baxter milk plant is on the road I take to the hospital for my doctor visits. It is right here in SJ. There is virtually no shipping cost associated with them providing milk to the greater SJ area, as they are right here in town. Why is the milk, considered a staple food by most governments, so much more expensive? Why can't Baxter bottle the milk in more convenient bulk packages?

This mystery baffles me. It makes no sense to me that this product (among many others) is so much more expensive here. It further causes me to shake my head that we can't get bulk milk in anything except a damn bag.