Milk numbers have played a bit of hide and seek recently, despite a return to "normal" retail price levels. But refrigerated coffee drinks have really taken a bath, while ice cream and refrigerated dips have held pretty steady.
Measured by unit, quarterly sales of white milk at all fat levels have declined in each of the last six quarters. For the first two quarters of last year, those declines were barely measurable at less than 1% by unit, but in the third quarter unit sales were down 2.9%. These numbers, from Information Resources Inc., are for food, drugstore and mass merchandiser sales, but do not include Wal-Mart. As milk prices jumped in 2004, unit sales dropped, but in the last two quarters both dollar sales and unit sales have been lower than in the same period in the prior year.