The right white stuff

SUPERMARKETS are to blame for tasteless milk through decades of driving down prices and focusing on standardisation, says the UK’S first milk sommelier.

More than 90% of all milk is sold through retailers today, which commonly use it as a loss leader to attract customers, but they have little interest in the distinctive taste of milk, which is either unhomogenised or from different breeds, claims Doug Wood, who has been hired by the Stirlingshire-based Graham’s Family Dairy.

‘It’s been a race to the bottom focused on price, not quality,’ says Mr Wood, who also owns a winemerchant business. ‘It’s easy for people to understand it’s 50p, but less easy for them to think it tastes good. They just see a glass of white stuff.’

A new generation of consumers is more concerned about taste, explains Mr Wood, yet ‘we all have preconceived ideas of milk and what it tastes like, so we need to work to break that down’.

Reinventing milk in the eyes of consumers will be no quick fix, according to experts. ‘We’re fighting against a generation that sees milk as white, not creamy or uncoloured. It’s valueless. The only choice people have is the colour of the cap,’ says Nick Banard, founder of the Rude Health food brand. ‘The answer is local brands. It’s not in a dairy’s interests to promote or be interested in breed-specific milk.’

The dairy industry as a whole is also guilty of driving people away from flavours in milk and cheese, says Roberto Flore, Michelin-starred chef and co-founder and head of culinary R&D at the Nordic Food Lab. ‘People are getting used to having a preference for mild flavours, driven by industry. Economically, it’s easy to produce, but our capacity to enjoy flavours is disappearing.’

Today, the number of consumers willing to experiment and pay more for different types of milk, such as Jersey and unhomogenised, may be small, but Mr Wood believes it can be grown through dairy companies focusing on the foodservice sector. He singles out the Indian curry market as a first step. ‘Curry and milk is the perfect match, because, unlike beer or wine, milk is an emulsion, so mixes with the spice and oil.’ Tom Levitt