Milk jumped in price again this year and health specialists are worried parents will turn to cheaper - and damaging - alternatives for their children. REECE MEULI investigates the implications:
Dearer than gold
It is not called "white gold" for nothing - milk is more expensive than Coca-Cola, fruit juice and petrol.
While last month's milk price increase was the first in three years, it is feared milk may soon be out of reach for some New Zealanders.
Consumers are now paying 6% more for milk, cheese, butter and yoghurt, after New Zealand 's two largest milk distributors, Anchor and Mainland, put up their prices on March 1 this year.
The 6% price increase comes at a time when most people have been struggling to come to grips with electricity and petrol price rises, according to economists.
Health professionals are concerned that parents will give children cheaper sugar-loaded fruit juice and carbonated drinks, rather than milk. Specialists in nutrition, bone growth and dentistry say they fear the price rise will have a long-term effect. Research is already linking the lack of milk to tooth decay, bone fractures and possible weight gain among children.
National nutrition surveys show that many people consume considerably less calcium than the amount recommended to build and maintain healthy bones.
The recent National Study of Children's Nutrition found many New Zealand children between five and 15 are not regular milk drinkers, and 15% have an inadequate intake of calcium. The highest incidence is among Pacific Island children who have the lowest median intake of milk. Only 38% of children reported drinking standard milk every day, 34% drink it weekly, 10% monthly and 17% less than monthly or never.
The study also found that weekly, 54% of children drink powdered fruit juice drink, 45% swig soft drinks, 43% down Coke and 43% have juice.
Taranaki community dietitian Bev Rea says dietitians and nutritionists are gravely concerned about the price rises. “Children would have to eat huge amounts of breads and vegetables to get sufficient calcium to replace the milk.”
She says there has been a big reduction in the consumption of milk. “People have been making the choice against milk for the wrong reasons. They have replaced it with fruit juices and soft drinks, fearing that milk contributed to cholesterol problems. Milk and water are two good basics we would like to see far more prevalent in a young person's diet rather than processed food and drinks.”
Dietitians often do promotions in schools and pre-schools to encourage milk consumption and had approached Fonterra to place milk vending machines in schools. “Machines have been placed in bigger schools where they can justify it, because it is quite expensive. The problem is that milk has a short shelf life, unlike soft drinks which can sit there for a long time.”
A reason for children having a low milk intake is milk is not being provided at home.
“In some families, parents can only afford to let their children use milk at breakfast time for their cereal. There are a lot of families who don't have sufficient funds to provide those basic food stuffs that are so important.”
Problems are also occurring for children because parents are trying to cut back their fat intake from dairy products by choosing low fat alternatives.
“Children under two really shouldn't be using those reduced-fat milks. We need to make sure that young children get sufficient milk, because that's when the bone structure is developed for the rest of your life. Parents have taken on board the mentality, ‘If this is good enough for me, then it must be good for my child.' In the States we have seen this happen. People were putting their babies on these low fat milks. Fat is essential for a whole lot of hormonal stuff and brain development. So it's really important to get the right message.”
She says milk was an essential food for children in early years, because that is when the human body functioned at its most efficient level to take calcium from food and mineralising the bone. Milk is an important source of a range of B vitamins and calcium, which make bones strong and dense and this is established during childhood.
Girls and women need to continue taking it to avoid losing density and suffering from osteoporosis in later years. “That ability changes as we grow older and after about the age of 35, we go through a negative calcium balance, where we excrete more calcium than we retain in our bodies.”
Ms Rea identifies a real problem for women when they get to menopause. “There's a real problem because osteoporosis is such a silent disease as it just creeps up on people and we are worried this current generation will develop osteoporosis in much larger numbers than is seen now.”
Research fellow Professor Ailsa Goulding, of Otago University's department of medical and surgical sciences and board member of Osteoporosis New Zealand, is considered an expert bone specialist and has provided world-leading research into children's bone fractures. Professor Goulding predicts an increase of bone fracture problems in New Zealanders if milk and other dairy products become too expensive.
She said there were several factors people should consider to retain optimal peak bone mass and continual building of new bone tissue as they got older.
Her research has indicated that an inadequate supply of calcium over a lifetime is thought to play a significant role in contributing to the development of osteoporosis. Many published studies show that low calcium intakes appear to be associated with low bone mass, rapid bone loss and high fracture rates.
In 1994, there were about 300 hip fractures in the elderly and this figure was predicted to increase to 4500 annually by 2011.
Children's fractures may be related to a lesser intake of calcium. A reduction in milk intake is likely to adversely affect a child's health. Teenage boys need about 600mg of calcium daily (one litre of milk contains about 1200mg) during the peak bone growth period to avoid becoming “at risk” adults, who could be losing bone stability from as early as their 20s.
Professor Goulding says people's calcium needs change. The body's need for calcium is greater during childhood and adolescence, when the skeleton is growing rapidly and during pregnancy and breastfeeding. Post-menopausal women also need to consume more calcium.
The milk price rise also has dentists worried that parents will provide children with cheaper sugar-loaded alternative drinks.
“We can only assume that when the price of milk goes up other alternatives are used,” says Taranaki public dentist Lyndie Foster Page. Statistics show an increase in decay in children and adolescents' teeth, and it is likely to be caused by an increase consumption of carbonated drinks and any form of sugar.
Dr Foster says the increased price of milk is going to have an impact on the amount of decay children will experience, because parents will be more likely to buy a litre of coke than a litre of milk. “Parents don't realise the long term effects the level of sugar, acid and caffeine that is present in something like coke, and what it does to the mouth and teeth.”
So why is society opting to purchase alternatives to milk?
With the March increase, the price for one litre of milk at New Plymouth supermarkets now ranges between $1.65 and $1.75, an increase of 10c a litre.
Thirty years ago consumers could choose only one variety of milk, compared to today, when consumers have more than six ranges to choose from the shelf. But consumers are continually opting for a cheaper alternative.
In comparison, Coca-Cola normally costs 92c a litre, natural fruit juice can be bought for as little as $1.09 a litre and the cheapest fizzy drinks are 64c a litre. The cheapest drink other than water from a tap is probably a bottle of cordial concentrate costing $3.48, or 29c a litre.
“I guess I'll have to economise by buying cheaper meats and veges, as there is no alternative to milk,” says Margaret Dwyer, a New Plymouth mother of four who buys 10-14 litres of milk a week.
Green Party Agricultural spokesperson Ian Ewen-Street says milk prices should be kept within reach of all New Zealanders. New Zealand should be able to provide the domestic market with a cheap and high quality milk product. “The one thing we do exceptionally well in this country is produce milk. We are a big player in international terms in milk solids.”
Mr Ewen-Street believes the high New Zealand dollar should be pushing the price of milk down. “If the commodity price is relatively low and the New Zealand dollar is high, then milk should be very cheap on the domestic market rather than expensive.
“It's cheaper for a low income family to buy Coke for the kids than it is to buy milk, even though they know coke is not as good for their kids as milk is. But if it's cheaper and keeps the kids happy, then there will be a temptation to do that.”
Westpac chief economist Tony Alexander saysd the milk price increase will not have a huge effect on the cost of living, as milk has a weighting of only 0.8% on the consumer price index. “Consumers will be more likely to notice the price increase of milk because it's a regular cash expenditure.”
He says another reason people will notice the price increase of milk is the fall in other commodity prices, because of the relative strength of the New Zealand dollar.
Individual consumers will not be the only ones affected by the increase. Both dairies and cafes in New Plymouth have been affected by the price rise.
A New Plymouth dairy owner, who did not want to be named, says the price of milkshakes has increased because of the higher cost of milk. But she has not noticed a decrease in sales of milkshakes, as she believes consumers are still willing to pay extra for the convenience dairies offer.
McFarlanes Caffe owner Craig McFarlane says consumers will face slight increases. “There are a lot of dairy-based products that will be affected by such an increase. Initially, people don't go and put 6%on a cappuccino because there is more milk. It just happens over time.”
The industry that will be hit the hardest is the local milk vendor.
Milk vendors around Taranaki have already been delivering on fewer days because of a lack of demand and the latest price increase is likely to mean people will again review the quantity they buy. Over the last 30 years milk vendors are slowly being squeezed out of home deliveries due to price rises and people cutting back on consumption or opting to purchase from supermarkets.
A New Plymouth milk vendor who wishes to remain anonymous says it is too hard to ascertain whether the price increase will have a negative effect on his business at this stage. “What it does do in the long term is that people look for a cheaper brand. It's like anything, when things go up, people cut back on the volume as their spending power is depleted.”
But what effect is it going to have on milk's primary source: farming?
One Taranaki farmer who wants to remain anonymous says questions need to be asked why the price of milk is going up when the producer, the farmer, is getting less for the product.
“Fonterra are the ones that have put the commodity price up, but at the same time they are not looking after the farmers by paying us accordingly. They are paying us less. So it's the gap in the middle.”
The gap between what the farmer is paid for milk solids and what Fonterra is selling it to retailers for has increased in the last two years. With the strong New Zealand dollar, farmers are getting less for their overseas product.
So what was the reason for this 6% price increase?
Mainland chief executive Geoff Norgate says the rise was the first in three years and was due to increased operating costs, as well as higher international dairy commodity prices.
Economically, how can a family today continue to keep the flow of ‘white gold' running?
The cheapest option is to buy a 1 kg bag of powdered milk at a cost of about a $6.83, which makes eight litres of milk for 85c a litre.
But why should a nation known for its dairy production let its people settle for anything less than ‘white gold' in its purest form?
REECE MEULI is WITT journalism student