Research highlights Australians milk choice preferences

A new study has found Australians consumers have a ‘fresh is best attitude’ to milk with not many interested in drinking the UHT version.

This goes against global trends with UHT milk being highly popular in Europe and Asia.

The research conducted by Australian research house Roy Morgan found that seven in ten Australians consume fresh milk at least once a week, less than two in ten drink the UHT version.

The ‘fresh is best’ attitude has been set in the mind of Australians for some time now with Roy Morgan saying UHT has remained largely unpopular choice over the past five years.

Those Australians who do choose to drink UHT are more likely to live in South Australia and be elderly.

“Tellingly, young parents and mid-life families are even more likely than the average Australian to buy fresh milk, and less likely to buy the long-life variety,” says Roy Morgan CEO Michele Levine.

UHT milk is almost the same in terms of calories and nutritional content when compared to fresh milk. It is cheaper and does not have to refrigerated until opened, yet Levine says these reasons are not winning over customers.

Australian’s have more accessibility to fresh milk than those in other countries due to a high number of dairy farms.

“In short, producers of UHT/long-life milk keen to boost their popularity in Australia have their work cut out for them,” says Levine.