There's further evidence of just how price-driven the U.S. fluid milk market is. Recent figures from Information Resources Inc., show unit sales are dropping at a lower pace now that retail prices are relaxing from last summer's spike. Quarterly sales of refrigerated milk were down just 1.1% by unit in the last quarter of 2004. They had been off by nearly 5% in the two quarters prior. These figures are for food, drug and mass merchandisers, but they do not capture convenience channel sales, Wal-Mart or foodservice.
Dollar sales were growing at more than 10% in the second and third quarter last year, but tailed off a bit at the end of the year as prices began to recede.