Three-litre milk will soon be available in Ontario stores

Thursday, November 27, 2014

by SUSAN MANN

The Ontario Farm Products Marketing Commission has given the green light for milk in Ontario to be sold in three-litre containers.

Commission chair Geri Kamenz says the commission filed a regulation Nov. 19 allowing for the sale and distribution of milk in three-litre containers. The regulatory change became “effective immediately. It serves as a further option for retailers today.”

The commission has the authority under the Milk Act to make regulations on the types and sizes of containers for fluid milk products. Section 8 of Milk Act regulation 753 stipulates the sizes of containers that must be used for fluid milk products for retail sale to consumers. Before the regulatory change, three-litre milk containers were not on the list and therefore couldn’t be used.

The commission posted a notice on the Ontario Regulatory Registry in August saying it intended to revoke the container size requirements in the regulation. Kamenz says they received a number of responses and based on the feedback it received from various parties “we felt there was ongoing value demonstrated to the ongoing container regulations.” The commission also “felt that the introduction of three-litre packaging was a progressive, incremental move that addressed needs that were demonstrated within the market that were currently not served.”

Instead of eliminating the container regulation, the commission just amended it to allow for the three-litre containers.

The matter was headed to the Ontario Agriculture, Food and Rural Affairs Appeal Tribunal as the Ontario Dairy Council, which represents processors, was challenging the commission’s decision to grant Mac’s Convenience Stores permission to sell milk in three-litre plastic jugs during a one-year pilot project. That appeal, initially scheduled for December, has now been cancelled.

Council president Christina Lewis says the council withdrew its appeal. Processors want the option to sell milk in three-litre containers to meet their retailer customers’ requests and demands. Retailers “have expressed an interest in wanting to try a three-litre container but to meet that request there would have to be a regulation change to do that.”

The council’s appeal “was about allowing everybody to have a level playing field in the market,” Lewis says. Before the commission made the decision about a year ago approving the Mac’s pilot project, the council told it “we would completely support the three-litre test market.” But the council wanted all processors and retailers to have an opportunity to be able to participate in that test market.

“It’s a very highly regulated industry so if you’re going to make a change or an exception, it has to be fair for everybody so that somebody doesn’t get a head start in the market,” she says, adding the idea of offering milk in three-litre containers has been kicking around for about 10 years.

Lewis says the commission’s decision now opens up the opportunity for all processors and retailers to sell milk in three-litre containers if they want.
 
Kamenz says the commission’s decision to allow three-litre milk containers “is a very measured and disciplined approach to the ongoing evolution of supply management.”

Dairy Farmers of Ontario general counsel and communications director Graham Lloyd says their interest in the matter is ensuring there’s choice for consumers and “if that choice sells more milk then it’s something we’re fully supportive of.”

Lloyd says Dairy Farmers “ believes by offering more variety we hope that it will increase or improve sales but we don’t know the actual impact it will have.”

Dairy Farmers wanted the dairy council and the commission to undertake a study with it “to see if it (three-litre milk containers) would improve or increase milk sales” before any regulatory changes were made, he says. “We thought that would be in the best interests of everybody – the consumer, the processor and the farmer. But in the absence of that, we’re optimistic it will improve sales by providing more option or variety to the consumer.”

It will be up to individual processors to determine when milk in three-litre containers will hit store shelves, Lloyd says.

Lewis says processors may need to make equipment modifications or packaging and label changes before the three-litre containers will available to retailers, and she didn’t know how quickly the containers would appear on store shelves. BF