“Consumption of milk per capita has gone down every year over the last 30 years,” says Sylvain Charlebois, director of the Agri-Food Analytics Lab at Dalhousie University. “Actually, it’s gone down by more than 20 per cent since 2015.”
While bagged milk is often cited as a unique Canadianism, it’s actually not sold west of Ontario. Those who prefer it, however, say it’s more cost efficient and some even believe it tastes better.
There are probably some slight differences between milk used for further processing and milk sold directly to consumers but it’s of a very similar quality. A lot of cheese in Canada is made from third party milk rather than milk produced on premises.
You can make the argument that the quality of milk in general is dropping, and that’s reflected in the quality of milk products. But to say that poor quality of milk products themselves are driving the decrease in milk consumption? I don’t see how the logic follows.