This Milk is Fresh

Being lactose intolerant, I don't necessarily have many options when shopping for milk products - I basically take whatever brand is offering the kind of milk I can digest, dodgy packaging notwithstanding. But while shopping the dairy aisle at my local supermarket, it struck me that several new brands of dairy products were vying for attention via fresh-looking package design. Milk cartons were historically famous for featuring missing children, not design-forward graphics. But there they were unmistakeably in the refrigerators, calling to me like a Saul Bass film intro. Perhaps it's because commercial food package design is so particular and expected that these stood out, but they had such a uniquely pared-down retro aesthetic that was... fresh.

Local Milk is all straightforward and down-to-earth, totally appropos for the locavorism that's been sweeping the country of late. It's so retro-cool you could almost see the handlebar moustaches on the young farmers wearing their heritage duds, working the farm before they pick up their guitars at night and head into Brooklyn to play with their alterna-rock bands. (speaking of which, the brand's a bestseller in Brooklyn, I hear). For more on Local Milk, visit their website at fiveacrefarms.biz


Kalona Supernatural has a very friendly graphic design, hand-hewn quality to it, as if the labels were scrawled with a felt pen just minutes before being loaded into the truck. Unusual shades of bright solid colors help differentiate their products from the rest of the products in the milk aisle. The brand makes cheese and yogurts as well as egg products, but I'm focusing on the white stuff for this blog post. If you want to check them all out (and all their consistently cute packaging), go to kalonasupernatural.com.




While technically not dairy milk, 8th Continent's line of soy milk projects the same Good Morning-y wholesomeness of their less vegetarian counterparts, with sunny illustrations that hark back to 60s craft motifs.


This is probably the most realized product line of the three, and I love those torn-paper-like illustrations that carry on to their superbly cute and entertaining website that you should check out here.



Will these brands assert themselves enough to gain a following? And will they last? Or will they expire despite their best aesthetic intentions, like the perishable dairy goods their pretty packages contain? Who knows, but I certainly appreciated their aesthetic efforts. Sadly, I reached for a carton of Skim Plus Lactose Free, since design will certainly please my eye but I needed something that wouldn't irritate my stomach.