(Doesn’t the PHD have an obligation to be honest when marketing its products?)

That sentiment has been communicated in the face of expansive global consumerism and I whole heartedly agree. Though dealing with the question of milk, there are so many other products on out there ( more so international than local that are marketed dishonestly – some as being healty but with no real nutritional value etc. because of the processing that would have been undertaken). However, dealing with a local product there should be no problem for government to enforce such regulation.

How can you improve milk? New and improved? Hmmmm…… The stuffings done get lick out of it, so how can you improve it? You putting back in the stuffings? So why you take them out in the firsts place?

Real technology would find a way to deliver milk to the table without altering its composition.

So funny that we talking about milk but COW is the problem? One COW want to produce more milk than all the rest. LOL!

As a Caribbean food writer and a proponent of “we should have thought movement of food before movement of people” with regards to Caricom, I am very much against imports of food from outside of our Caribbean region – especially from the US – mostly because of their food policies, i.e. use of dangerous chemicals in processed foods, disgusting treatment of animals in abbatoirs (including unbelievably horrid feeding of harmful substances to fatten), engineered plant life, use of pesticides and herbicides and and and. Organic is one thing but we hardly get much of this from them and when we do the price is way beyond what we can afford here to pay. But even then with the FDA being ‘paid off’ by the “big guys” you really ent know what really organic or not!! We would actually be better off, if we have to import, to import from European countries whose standards of food production are better controlled. So that having been said, let me continue.

When I see that Emerald City have brought in “fresh” milk (and I agree that it cannot be totally fresh if it coming in containers from the US – will be buying the smallest bottle available today to study contents), I say that perhaps FINALLY Pine Hill Dairies will get the message that the people of Barbados want good tasting milk – I understand this US milk has a wonderful fresh taste (not saying it fresh mind…remember dat!) from all reports on Facebook and this milk is being sucked out of the groceries like babies does suck warm milk from bubbies! That shows our craving-not (in words taken from Adrian Clarke in Run For Your Money at Super Centre) for bad-tasting milk.

Barbados has for years prided itself for having one of the few real dairies in the Caribbean…good fresh milk, pasteurized yes! but at least almost straight from the cows tits, and if you did not refrigerate, it went bad almost immediately because that is what fresh milk does. So, a few months ago, when I went to BMex and saw the PHD stand, I asked the girls working there if this new milk was indeed fresh as advertised, especially as it was out on the counter for all to see, and I assumed the cartons were full and advertisements said it could stay there for ninety days. They began to giggle and pointed me to a gentleman standing a little further away telling me to ask him as he was the Marketing Manager for PHD. So I did. Well, I got the long run around about yes! this was fresh milk but just a whole new way of dealing with it. When questioned further about the shelf life and the word fresh not really being in’ cahoots’ with each other, and the fact that it sounded more like UHT milk to me, this gentleman got a lot irate and said: “You can decide for yourself if it is fresh or not, I know it to be fresh. I not arguing with you. Believe what you want.” And that was the end of our conversation. Sweet eh? Now that gentleman deserves an award for being NISE!

Now how stuped does Pine Hill Dairy think we, the lovers of milk are? I bet if I asked a crackhead on the side of the road what constitutes fresh milk, he would be able to tell me quite categorically one that comes from the cow’s tit. Yep! that is indeed fresh milk. And yes! we have been pasteurizing milk since the last US push to have us change our ways of providing good wholesome food to our people – and yes! it was not necessary to pasteurize but that was suddenly the global way of the world. Read Last Chance to Eat by Gina Mallet ’cause nothing fresh anymore it all pasteurized according to her (and I agree). But at least the milk tasted like real milk and there were no additives apart from some minerals removed in the pasteurization process. No chemicals at least. No reducing the milk’s integrity to something that can remain on a shelf for ninety days. So it is only obvious that what Pine Hill Dairy is producing is NOT FRESH MILK. The fact that they advise their distributors to keep same refrigerated is trying to fool people and this should have been brought before the Fair Trading Commission long before the milk was allowed to go on to supermarket shelves. Plus on top of that insult to injury, Pine Hill Dairy’s “fresh-ninety-day-milk” tastes like hell and gives some people I know instant ‘bad tummies’ as I have heard say.

Now Barbados has complained to PHD since the inception of this wonderful new innovative way to produce milk for us, but it is obvious that no one up there has paid the public any mind ’cause de milk still there. The pretense still there. Perhaps PHD felt that sooner or later people would forget ’bout dat…and just pick up where they left off and drink it!! Like so many other things we just accept in the island. PHD must have thought this hatred of their “fresh” milk would just “go away” wiped under the proverbial carpet of green grass!!

But guess what? Pine Hill Dairy did not bargain on Andrew Bynoe and Carlton & Emerald City. No Sah. Many ways to skin a cat (in this case a cow I guess) is the saying and “fresh” good-tasting milk was imported by Carlton managing to get through whatever paperwork required by customs. Unfortunately (or fortunately in this case) many Bajans have become “attached” to all America has to offer, whether bad or good for health, and so, as would be expected, the Bajan public have rushed to purchase same and extolled its virtues of looks (creamy white) and taste (just like good old-fashioned fresh milk)…and just by word of mouth the good news has spread as ‘though Lickmout’ Lou’s Lottie had jumped on a horse like the old time town-criers ’cause I ent see no big advertisements from Carlton like PHD does do wid dat “fresh” milk of theirs.

Suddenly now we have questions as to why this importation was allowed. Well…..

I say thank God this US milk got on the shelves…Andrew Bynoe Sah, you require an award for what you have done for us, the consumers of Barbados. Perhaps now someone will stand up and smell the roses. And it goes like this:

WE DO NOT LIKE THAT NOT-FRESH MILK PINE HILL DAIRY. WE DO NOT LIKE THAT YOU CALL IT FRESH AND PLACE IT IN REFRIGERATED AREAS TO FOOL US. SO BUILD BACK UP YOUR DAIRY INDUSTRY WITH THE FARMERS AND GIVE US WHAT WE WANT.

If you want to sell that crap to some at a cheaper price, fine. But give people a choice. I bet fresh milk at even a slightly higher price (not just for the pockets of PHD but also for the farmers!) will far surpass your expectations in sales.

Sometimes all it takes is one rude awakening by the consumer to stop the dyamned nonsense put in front of us. I hope this is one of those instances! Sorry but just one more time, I have to say it: YES! YES! Mistah Bynoe Sah – you deserve to be a King for a day or two at least!. Bless.

I have no problem with it, whether they call it fresh or UHT or what makes no diff to me – I use it on its own or with coffee/cooking, etc. I have heard those who can afford are going back to DFB: Direct From Bovine – super for them, but I think it’s all just Tomas in a milk carton?

And yes! Lowdown’s Goat Milk (and there’s another lady bottling too in Chancery Lane) is excellent and even better for your health than cow’s milk, if you really want to know, peoples!

So what is to become of dairy farmers…..I am sure you guys are aware that the milk that is being imported has been treated the same way as PHD is doing, except that they are better at it!!!!

This is just one out of thousands of examples of good food defiled and poisoned in the name of profit and presented to the public as good food to live on. Technology has not been used to enhance our lives but to destroy us.

Thing is, these manufacturing processes have so overtaken us that everything you put your hands on is defiled. Kudos to those who are now bottling coconut water without any alterations to its composition.

@dairy farmer,
I drink milk almost every day here in Canada and when I am in Barbados.
Prior to this new 90 day milk, PHD tasted like Canadian regular homogenized milk.
In Canada there are other type of processed milk for example “”Lactantia PurFiltre (TM)” Milk is the biggest breakthrough since Louis Pasteur developed pasteurization,” says Graham Freeman, President and CEO, Ault Foods Limited. “Our commitment to developing the best quality dairy products possible, combined with our dedication to leadership in dairy technology, has resulted in a unique filtering system that removes most of the bacteria that pasteurization doesn’t eliminate.” Adds Freeman, “It allows us to use less pasteurization heat and processing, and as a result, keeps the milk closer to its natural, farm-fresh quality and taste.”

The point is that PHD is a monopoly and Bajans deserve milk that taste like the PHD milk from 2 years ago.

@ Hants. I too drink a lot of boiled fresh cows milk back in the days. My uncle had a few cows and I would get up early in the morning and go milk the cows … the only problem at times is when the cow use its tail and hit you in the face or worse step in the pale of milk . In my Dairy science class I was told that once the milk is boiled ( to kill the staphyllococci bacteria ) then it poses no health issue for consumption, however, the problem occur when you drink the fresh milk just coming out the udder without no treatment whatsoever. Milk in this state has a lot of harmful bacteria inside it. Nonethless, I have seen a lot of people who consume milk this way back in those days and it had no negative effect on them.

A. Freeman in the ball.

I am in touch with a small dairy farmer whose milk is delightful. Fresh from the cow’s udders you can purchase and boil at home. However, her (yes! it is a lady with I think about six cows) father has been drinking this same milk from time immemorial without boiling, and he is as healthy as can be. I do believe that if you have healthy practices on your farm and oversee the milking yourself – by the way not done by hand anymore but mechanically ensuring better health standards too – there is no harm in a glass of perfectly fresh milk. I am not a milk drinker myself but in the interest of what we expect to be part of our food supplies, I am stickler for ensuring that we eat goodness and not scientifically modified crap! Just me. That’s how I think.

PHD can say what they want but the new milk is no way in same league as to the old one. While i would prefer them to source their milk from bajan farmers at least this another choice than that new dreadful product phd tossed on us.

To Pine Hill Dairy, the message is the “pigeons have come home to roost”, many years ago I remember the problems the local milk farmers were having with PHD, they started to gut the quota, we were sure of getting local bajann cow’s milk but PHD was intent on cutting out the little farmers, now all of a sudden they can get all the milk we want from local farmers, when they have put many of them out of business.For months we the consumer have been complaining about the low quality bad tasting milk they have been putting on the shelf, they would not listen but thank God Sir Andrew Bynoe did, thanks to you sir for standing up to them and doing something about it. In any case PHD milk isn’t fresh and most of it is imported from Brazil or Peru or some other country., so PHD shut up, we bajans are beginning to take a stand when it comes to our dollars.You made your bed now lie in it

Looks like this matter is going to be milked for all it’s worth!!

like I betta get some goats and get into the business.

It is okay for some to import and others to buy and drink the “fresh milk” from the USA. However, before you feed it to your children, be aware that 1/3 of all US dairy cows are fed with Monsanto’s ‘Posilac”, a synthetic hormone that increases milk production. In Canada and the EU use of this hormone is not allowed. The chemical name is recombinant bovine somatotropin or rBST.

Walmart and other stores sell American cheeses. I always read my labels. Although I buy cheese from France or Quebec, I prefer to go to Alberts Cheese, just a half hour on the highway east of my home to get my good Ontario cheeses. Another good fromagerie is Baldersons’ which is also about 45 minutes south West of me.

In studies done in Canada the cows using this hormone developed pus in the udders which were found in the milk and apparently the hormone does also turn up in the milk. The Canadian government was under heavy pressure from the US to legalize this hormone but Agriculture, Health Canada and Industry were all against it. These are three heavy hitting ministries and so Monsanto got nowhere.

As Pat is saying, beware of imported milk

Oh Dear dear,

Heating milk is and old process designed to improve the shelf life… by killing off some sorta some thing in the milk…. Normal pasteurizing is heating to above room temp (but very much below boiling) for a couple of seconds. UHT is super heating the liquid I believe to well above boiling for an instant …bam! The problem with boiling the milk is that you will more than likely kill what ever else there is in the milk that is considered nutritious other than the minerals of course (you know calcium and so on, always hated chemistry).

Again, in any event, cow’s milk was designed for calves so the only need for a desire to drink it has to be taste… so boil it (the milk) away to your hearts content

@BAFBFP
Thanks but obvious you doan know nuh more chemistry dan me.

Will wait for intelligent agent to come back from church for expert analysis.lol

ok ROK.
I Hants had a wonderful grandmother. She used to put milk in a pot and light de kerscene stove.
Wen de milk ready an cool back down she would gih me as much as I wanted to drink.

Important points to discuss.

Do the vast majority of low income Barbadians own refrigerators.
If so there is no need for milk with a 90 day shelf life.

I have not tasted this NEW milk yet but on my last visit to Barbados I found the taste of PHD homogenized and 2% milk to be similar to milk I drink in Canada.

@Hants
“What difference does it make whether we call it boil,scald,heat up nuff nuff or wuh?”

There is a great difference between scalding milk and boiling milk, just as there is a difference between boiling and pasteurising. Let your expert tell you what is the difference. You probably did not even know what your grandmother did. You just get the milk and that’s all, but for sure, she scalded it and not boiled it. Nobody who knew their way around the kitchen boiled milk, except accidentally. At that time, everybody knew that you just did not let milk reach boiling point.

Rok like you got more grey in yah beard man …! Time to change some ah your bad practices an’ turn to de Almighty … ja ja

More grey in beard? That is the milk. True, time to stop the bad practice of drinking milk. Turn to the almighty? I really wonder how many people know how to do that.

The only motivation that we need at this time to tolerate the PHD milk and other local products is the prospect of a devalued Barbados dollar, along with our family and friends being unemployed. By supporting imported products at this time, we help foreign economies and workers at the expense of our own. Where possible, we need to support local products and employment, at least during this period of difficulty. The Barbados Government cannot officially promote this, but Barbadians can. Let us help ourselves at this time.

@Hants: “I have not tasted this NEW milk yet but on my last visit to Barbados I found the taste of PHD homogenized and 2% milk to be similar to milk I drink in Canada.

The original product tasted exactly (or near enough) the same as the milk available in Canada.

The “new and improved” product tastes very much like reconstituted powered milk; awful.

I used to drink about a litre of milk a day — now I can barely stand it in my coffee. Our household (of two) have dropped our milk consumption from over eight litres a week to less than two.