11/28/06 Change package, watch sales jump

The product is the same but the traditional milk carton is being replaced with plastic, resealable jugs. It's happening in schools. It's happened at McDonalds. DARMODY "The milk since we put it in the packaging and brought in the chocolate flavor has, I don't know the exact number, but I would say its close to doubled, our milk sales have doubled." That's Dick Darmody, a spokesman for his family's 26 McDonalds outlets in the Boise Valley. He says nationwide milk sales at McDonalds jumped from 62.5 million servings in 2003 to 98 million last year. DARMODY "We've always allowed parents to substitute beverages in Happy Meals or any type of meal that they would like their children to have whether it would be a juice, or a milk or whatever other beverage, a water, but until we had that packaging that really promoted the milk and kind of put it on the cutting edge from a marketing point of view it was hard to promote that to parents and let them know that was available. Once the milk was in the packaging it made a huge difference." Schools are getting into the dairy act too by replacing soda pop and candy machines with vending machines holding milk, cheese and yogurt. Meadow Gold Dairies says it hopes to replace 15 percent of its paper cartons going to Idaho schools with new plastic bottles beginning next March. Today's Idaho Ag News Bill Scott