Milk bags

Americans like to point out that Canadians buy milk in bags, but the truth is only part of Canada uses milk bags. The story of milk bags in Canada begins in the 1960s. At the time, milk came in glass bottles primarily. Some producers sold milk in cardboard or plastic jugs. In Canada's Centennial Year of 1967, DuPont introduced milk bags to the country. Some European countries used milk bags, so DuPont needed to buy European equipment for the bags. This turned out to be a good move because in the 1970s, Canada moved towards the metric system. While other companies had to redesign all of their bottles, jugs and cartons, milk bag packaging machines only needed to be resized at a very low cost. When Canada went metric, three-quart milk bags became four-liter milk bags without much trouble.

Many in the dairy industry in Canada liked milk bags because they were easier to ship than glass bottles. But the bags were not as popular everywhere. Even though Americans like to assume all of Canada uses milk bags, they are only widely used in Eastern Canada in Ontario, Quebec and the Maritimes. Currently, bagged milk sales account for 80% of milk sales in many areas of Ontario. Milk bags are not really sold in Western Canada, Newfoundland or the Territories. If they are, they are hard to find.

In the 1980s after the government relaxed metric measurements, milk jugs became more popular in various areas of the country. By the 1990s, milk bags were gone in places like Alberta. Ontario held on though. The reason was that a retailer had to implement a deposit or recycling system for milk jugs, which consumers paid at the store. Milk bags don't have that requirement, so retailers keep using bags and consumers keep buying them. This regulation was amended in 2018, but it can take years for consumers to break habits. So in Ontario at least, milk bags will continue to be popular for many years to come.