A Pun on Cravin' Would Be Beneath Me (Cravendale Milk)

Member Name: jillmurphy

Product:	Cravendale Milk
Date:	04/01/04 (478 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: It lasts longer., It tastes creamier.

Disadvantages: It's more expensive., It's hard to recycle the packaging., Do you really need your milk to last three weeks?

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By and large, advertising campaigns irritate the life out of me. This one was no different. Cravendale milk, apparently, is so super, "the cows want it back". Hmm? I ignored the TV advertisements. I ignored the coupon which offered me a free 2 litre "jug" of Cravendale milk. I ignored the tie-up with TV chef Paul Rankin. In the absence of a local milkman, I continued to source my milk from the village shop, who source it from a Devon milk processor (I live in Devon), who source it from only West Country farms. Truth be told, I didn't really approve of Cravendale milk. What is there to market in milk, for heavens sakes? It's a staple, and as such is surely better sourced from local suppliers. Milk is milk, isn't it? I don't approve of multi-million pound advertising campaigns which "brand" a staple product. They simply trick us all into paying more for it. And what's the point of transporting milk up and down the length of the country, adding to pollution and congestion, for the sake of that [expensive] brand name? Was this milk British, even? Cravendale milk is produced by Arla Foods, who make Lurpak butter. Lurpak isn't British, it's Danish! Milk, all the way from Denmark? Tsk.

Well, you live and learn.

Cravendale milk makes several claims for its product. Firstly, the company claim their milk stays fresh for much longer than does "ordinary" milk. Cravendale milk is not merely pasteurised - heat treated - to kill off its nasty bacteria. Rather, it is filtered also. It is, apparently, triple filtered via the patented "PurFiltre" system. You can see how fond Cravendale is of this revolutionary filter, because a trademark and logo is on every pack. Anyway, this filtration process, according to Cravendale, will keep unopened milk fresh for almost three weeks. Once open, the milk will last for an entire week. That's considerably longer than its pasteuris
ed-only cousins. Secondly, Cravendale milk is apparently much richer and more creamy-tasting than your average pinta.

It was the creamy angle that got us.

What do you do about milk when you're on a diet? Especially what do you do when you like to drink a pint of milk most days because there's osteoporosis in your family? You can't bear that watery skimmed stuff, either. You decide to test the claims made by Cravendale milk, that's what! A two litre "jug" of skimmed Cravendale went into our trolley on a visit to Tesco. And you know, it's true. Cravendale is richer than its equivalent pasteurised-only milk. Drinking it, none of us could taste a difference between Cravendale's skimmed offering and our usual semi-skimmed, local milk. This pleased Husband On A Diet no end. Because of the osteoporosis in his family, he likes to eat at least one bowl of cereal and drink at least one glass of milk every day. But he can't bear skimmed milk, finding it tasteless and watery. There is a difference of 15 calories per 100ml between skimmed and semi-skimmed milk. This means his daily half-litre consumption of Cravendale has saved about 75 calories per day, with no loss of food pleasure. It's not big numbers, but it's not easy to make painless calorie sacrifices! We can't really speak for Cravendale's other claim; its extended shelf life, as milk would never last three weeks chez Murphy. However, we've been buying a fortnight's supply for one husband at a time, and we can promise you it lasts that long, at least.

And the smoothies have us hooked.

Spurred on by the smiling face of Husband On A Diet, the remaining members of family Murphy decided to see whether full fat Cravendale milk could bring benefits to their regular smoothie sessions. Hereabouts, we do love a good banana or peach smoothie. We hanker for rich, creamy Jersey milk to make them with, but it's never in the shops. W
e generally satisfy our greedy selves by splashing in some cream, but we discovered, with Cravendale's full fat milk, we didn't need the cream at all. Full fat Cravendale tastes just like Jersey milk: yummy! It makes a mean, creamy rice pudding too.

For a few pennies more...

You'll find Cravendale milk in most supermarkets. It's available, apparently, in one, two and three litre "jugs", although my local Tesco stock only the two litre size. You can't miss the packaging; it's the opaque white plastic bottle. According to Cravendale, the white packaging protects its long-lasting milk from the debilitating effects of being exposed to light. I can't imagine why all the standard pasteurised milk processors don't use white packaging in that case, but ho hum, who am I to question? They've stuck to the blue is full fat, green is semi-skimmed and red is skimmed system used by everyone else. You'll find a pretty blue picture with clouds, some lovely green grass and a very odd Planet Mars landscape on each "jug" respectively. I don't know why they insist on calling their plastic bottles "jugs" just because they're white, but they do. All I see is an annoying piece of packaging which is hard to recycle. Tsk. We cut ours in half, drill holes in the bottom and use them for seedlings. Cravendale's filtration process retains exactly the same amount of vitamins and minerals as does usually pasteurised milk. It needs no additives or preservatives to work either, so you've no loss of purity or wholesomeness. Although it's more expensive than the competition, buying Cravendale is not exorbitant. Tesco are currently selling a 2 litre bottle for £1.12 or 56p per litre. Their standard milk comes in at around 49p; not a whole lot less. And yes, I checked their website - www.cravendale.com - the milk is British, so it isn't as wasteful of resources as I'd first thought.
<
br>Like I said, you live and learn!

Would I recommend Cravendale milk to you? Well, yes and no. I still think the advertising is over the top. I still think Cravendale tries to impress the consumer with claims that are often neither desirable nor necessary. The difficult-to-recycle HDPE plastic "jugs" are a poor offering to the green consumer in comparison to the nice refillable glass bottle from the increasingly rare milkman. And honestly, there really is no need to buy a premium, branded product like this if you're an every day milk consumer. The average family won't need milk which keeps for three weeks; it'll be gone far quicker than that. Unless you're a singleton using milk just for a splash in cups of tea or coffee, then a twenty day shelf life is rather a pointless feature. Still, if you're in that minority niche, Cravendale is well worth considering. Neither does the average family need to worry about the calorific content of the milk they drink. Children, for example, don't need skimmed milk. They need plenty of wholesome, energy-rich food. However, if you're on a diet and are counting calories, but can't bear the watery consistency of pasteurised skimmed milk, then Cravendale's skimmed offering will be a godsend to you. Skimmed Cravendale milk tastes like semi-skimmed pasteurised milk. Full fat Cravendale milk tastes like yumptious, creamy Jersey milk. It's a wonderful way to lose some calories painlessly. At Murphy Towers, Husband On A Diet drinks Cravendale, while the rest of the family cling to the principle of local sourcing (well, apart from the odd smoothie session). So, Cravendale milk is...

Recommended: if you're a milk-miserly singleton
Recommended: if you're counting calories
Not Recommended: if you're the average milk-drinking family
Not Recommended: if you're a demon for recycling

Three stars: one docked for the packaging, one for the brain
washing advertising. But no, the cows can't have it back!

Summary: