No payments were made to or solicited by Consumers Union from any person or entity connected with the survey. That is, regardless of socioeconomic factors, season of the year, or changing fads, consumers always buy milk. There is no good, reasonably-priced, nutritional alternative to milk. When food budgets are tight, consumers are more likely to scrimp on other items rather than limit their milk purchases. Many consumers are unaware of the price they pay for milk, and their busy lifestyles preclude them from shopping around for the best price.
Retailers consider milk a lure because it is so essential to families.
This discrepancy, a phenomenon which exists even in low-income neighborhoods, makes no economic sense. The smaller stores pay higher wholesale costs per gallon for moving a smaller volume of milk. Furthermore, many of the big chain supermarkets are also milk processors, so they have eliminated the profit of the middle man. In short, the big chain supermarket retailers pay less to get the milk onto their shelves than small market grocers do, and yet the supermarkets charge consumers the highest prices for milk. A good example of a large chain charging considerably more for a gallon of milk than smaller markets in the same neighborhood is Cala Foods in the low-income Mission District of San Francisco.