I happened to be talking to him and the topic of milk came up, so…
His organization delivers milk to several “brands”, and it’s all the same stuff. The brands do process it differently. One of the more expensive ones does an “ulra-filtering” something or other that removes a lot of the sugars (like lactose).
He also mentiond that the milk that Walmart sells around here (Arizona) is shipped in from New York. I’m not sure if that makes it more or less expensive than milk from Arizona cows.
The comment on Walmart is interesting. The Walmart milk here in Utah is almost always cheaper than I can find any brand at any other grocery store in the area. And there doesn’t seem to be any difference in the good thru date. At Walmart their milk brand is usually $0.50 to $1 some times even more, cheaper per gallon than the name brands they carry. Ant the name brands that they carry seem to be comparably priced usually on the lower side from what other grocers in the area charge.
The brands also have different lists of farms they will buy from, I bet. Some want the farmer to pledge not to use BST, some only buy from organic producers, etc.
One of the brands i buy is supposedly sourced from a single herd of jersey cows about 100 miles from here.
He said the main brands around here all get the same milk from the same cows. There may be specialty things going on outside his organization though.
Arizona milk is more expensive than New York milk, all other things being equal. The reason for this is the basing point for milk is set based upon how far the milk is produced from Eau Claire, Wisconsin. New York is about 1,100 miles from Eau Claire while Arizona is about 1,600 miles from Eau Claire. Therefore Arizona milk will be more expensive than New York milk.
I kinda doubt they’re shipping milk from Wisconsin to Arizona. They have dairy farms in AZ.
Now cheese is a different story. Cheese gets shipped. Milk is far more likely to be from local dairy farms. At least the grocery store brands.
:whoosh:
Ooh, that works now! Thanks Lobster!
it’s pronounced the same as “Oak Lair”
Oh, did I fail to N an R? If so, even after having it pointed out to me, RNN.
Actually, it looks like I failed to N the R. 
I took the post about Eau Claire as a joke, but I guess it’s an actual thing from the New Deal: Queen Cow and the Eau Claire Rule : Eau Claire as the New Deal Base Point for the Federal Milk Marketing Order
The Eau Claire rule is the primary reason why there are more dairy cows in California than in Wisconsin.
That’s interesting. I mostly buy “specialty milk”, that makes very specific claims such that it would be serious fraud if it came from the same places as the store brand milk. So when I think “more expensive milk” I’m thinking of those specialty operations. But yeah, I guess it doesn’t shock me to learn that at least where you live (and probably everywhere) the “ordinary” brands all source their milk from the same dairies.
Wikipedia says " An attempt by USDA to establish a pricing structure using multiple basing points was thwarted by legislation in 1999." It might be interesting to see how that was thwarted. Or on second thought, probably not. I suppose it was just the far-from-Eau-Claire dairy producer lobby.