New Environmentally friendly milk jug may reduce milk costs

The price of milk isn’t the only thing changing at the grocery store. The shape of the iconic gallon jug itself is shifting in stores like Sam’s Club.

And some folks are having a cow.

"My friend bought it and hates it...it doesn't pour very well," one grocery store customer says. So why this change in dairy design?

"Because of the shape, traditional milk jugs can't be stacked, so they're shipped in milk crates. But they waste space on delivery trucks and millions of gallons of water are used to keep them clean."

The new flat-top jugs can simply be stacked and shrink-wrapped. No need for washing.

The new containers also store 50 percent more milk per cubic foot than the old jugs. That means more milk on each truck - reducing delivery trips and fuel costs.

"We're estimating it could be up to 11,000 trucks we're reducing on the road this year," said Daniel Book, marketing manager for Sam’s Club.

Sam’s used to take five milk-deliveries per week - now it’s down to two. They could only store 80 conventional-shaped gallons in their coolers. Now they can fit 224 of the new kind.

Experts say high fuel costs are driving all sorts of changes in product packaging.

"We really have all of the sort of bell weather signs of the perfect storm of depleted resources, finite planet,” said Anne Johnson of the Sustainable Packaging Coalition. “It's time to take some action if we want to protect our bottom line in the future."

Wal-Mart and Costco have adopted a new, more environmentally sound style of milk jug. The new jugs are facing both rave reviews and rants from customers. Most like the significant savings — Sam’s Club is able to knock up to 20 cents off the cost of a gallon of milk with the reduced materials necessary to produce the new jugs.

But many customers find the new jugs much more difficult to pour. Dairy owner Mike Compston told The New York Times that consumers must change their pouring technique: it’s a “rock-and-pour instead of a lift-and-tip.” Milk buyers are still struggling though — the new containers are easy to spill.

But there are plenty of benefits to the new milk jugs: they’re cheaper to produce, greener and more sanitary. When filling the older style of jug, dairies went through hundreds of thousands of gallons of water a day just to clean off the crates the jugs are stored in — the crates tend to be a favorite target of neighboring birds. But the new jugs are stackable and don't require crates — or the water needed to clean them. The environmental aspects of just that difference are tremendous.

Now, it’s just a matter of convincing shoppers to adapt.