Nonfat Dry Milk Packaged for Household Use: Marketing Practices and Costs of Manufacture and Distribution

Excerpts from the report Introduction: Sale of nonfat dry milk in retail packages is a relatively recent innovation in dairy marketing. Although nonfat dry milk was available to civilian consumers in the early years of World War II, and was widely used by the armed forces and by civilian populations abroad, it was not until well after the war's end that quality and ease of reconstitution were such that the product was generally acceptable to the American housewife. Since 1948 sales of nonfat dry milk for home use have spiraled upward. From a little over 2 million pounds in 1948, sales rose to 30 million pounds in 1950, and to an estimated 169 million pounds in 1958. Despite rapid growth, sales of nonfat dry milk for home use accounted for only about one-fifth of total domestic nongovernment sales of nonfat dry milk for food use in 1958. Sales for home use in 1958 were at the rate of less than 1 pound per capita out of a total use per capita of over 5 pounds, low in comparison with that for some other dairy products—12.6 pounds of evaporated milk per capita, 8.5 pounds of butter, and 17.6 pounds of ice cream, for example. The purpose of this report, therefore, is to provide information concerning nonfat dry milk produced for home use: The cost of manufacture, the agencies involved in marketing the product, the functions they perform and the marketing practices they follow, the cost of their services, and the farm-to-retail price spread or marketing margin.