From local to global: how did milk become a universal staple?

To understand history in its truest form, we must first recognise a crucial and somewhat counter-intuitive fact: before milk became truly popular as a beverage, the production of milk-based products in the Western world was already seeing exponential growth. A key reason hidden within this may be that, from the 1850s onwards, milk acquired a new identity as an industrial product. Gail Borden demonstrated that canned milk products, whether condensed milk or milk powder, possessed the portability and shelf-life that fresh liquid milk most lacked. As his production methods became widely adopted, other patented processes emerged globally, as determined experimenters sought to refine his techniques—primarily by adding or reducing ingredients, such as sugar—to create superior products.

In 1885, the UK was the first to develop milk powder, which gradually entered the market as a commodity. Initially used as a supplement for baby food, it later became a fundamental ingredient for chocolates and confectionery. In North America and Switzerland, the dairy industry evolved into a lucrative business, with production reaching staggering levels. The popularity of canned milk products also raised significant questions, chief among them being: what were consumers primarily using these canned products for? Were most buyers simply pouring it into their coffee? Were mothers using these canned goods to create their own special recipes for infants? How many of the canned products sold were purchased for culinary purposes? All these diverse possibilities suggest that processed dairy products paved the way for the future commercialisation of milk—liquid fresh milk that was perceived as safe in quality and priced within reach of the average consumer. Regardless, the massive growth in demand for dairy products had a systemic impact on the industry itself: it transformed modern conceptions of dairy farming, a shift that became particularly evident during the First World War.

A significant driver came from North America, where dairy farming expanded from the Midwestern states to the Far West, including Oregon and Washington. The rapid expansion of the condensed milk industry reflected the growth of the dairy sector at the time. Between 1890 and 1900, the total volume of condensed milk on the US market increased nearly fivefold, growing from 38 million pounds to 187 million pounds; following the outbreak of the First World War, this figure even peaked at 875 million pounds. During the war, demand from European markets drove continuous sales growth; by 1919, the US produced over 2 billion pounds of condensed milk and 44 million pounds of milk powder. And yet, these staggering figures consumed only half of the overall milk supply. Although the number of cows per person in the US rose from one to five, milk production had already possessed the capacity for surplus since 1900.

With the rise of corporate arrangements in sales and distribution, production grew explosively under the influence of various forces. Large enterprises emerged victorious during the restructuring of capitalist economies in Western Europe and the United States at the end of the 19th century. The milk processing industry was one of the most successful sectors of the food industry at the time; thanks to the convenience of global food export networks, various products could cross oceans and enter markets that had previously been untouched. Major companies began to compete fiercely in the global milk market, utilising new methods such as cheap long-distance transport and refrigeration technology. Another point not to be overlooked is that international commercial capital began restructuring production enterprises abroad. Switzerland established a foothold in Norway and Spain; American entrepreneurs turned their sights toward Switzerland; and Swiss immigrants began to reshape the industry in the American Midwest. This new paradigm of large-scale corporate milk production disrupted the existing landscape of the dairy industry, overturning the inherent notion of milk as a known local product.

For example, by 1920, the Borden Company had become one of the ‘largest manufacturing enterprises in the United States and Canada’. Even then, Borden’s vertical integration appeared remarkably modern: Borden owned and operated 31 condensed milk plants, 11 ‘raw material supply plants’, 11 can manufacturing plants, 2 confectionery factories, 2 malted milk plants, and 2 milk powder plants. Its subsidiary, Borden Farms, possessed ‘8 certified dairies, 156 township bottling plants and receiving stations, and 70 urban pasteurised milk plants and distribution branches’, supplying much of the fresh milk consumed in New York City, Chicago, and Montreal.

The surroundings of Vevey in Switzerland are picturesque, with hills dotted with lovely brown cows—the very source of inspiration for the German Henri Nestlé in the 1860s. As enthusiasm for new infant formulas surged, Nestlé transformed local charm into a product with broad appeal (and medical endorsement). This product blended milk powder made from Swiss milk with toasted grains and was initially sold in pharmacies across Europe. In 1868, Henri boasted to a partner: ‘Believe me, promoting the same invention in four countries simultaneously is no small feat.’ By 1873, his product had crossed two oceans, reaching 16 countries and regions, including Mexico, Argentina, the Dutch East Indies, and Australia.

Nestlé founded his brand with sincerity and great ambition, aiming to produce affordable Swiss milk. He stated: ‘The ones who buy the most milk from us are not the wealthy.’ (Throughout the company’s history, Nestlé never abandoned this blunt motto and profit-driven calculation.) ‘We must keep the price of baby food within a range that everyone can afford. Selling two tins for 3.6 Swiss francs is far better than selling one for 2 Swiss francs.’ These elegant tins depicted a mother bird feeding newborn chicks in a nest. Agents had suggested that the founder use the cross from the famous Swiss flag as the brand’s trademark, but he flatly refused. The image of a bird formed the primary motif of his ‘shield heraldry’; after all, the word Nestlé in Swiss German means ‘little nest’, and here, personal identity took precedence over national symbols. In an era of high nationalist fervour, Nestlé’s self-interest may have been more conducive to sales. After 1871, residents of the area surrounding the factory began to accuse Nestlé of driving up local milk prices. In a country where a cheap and abundant milk supply was viewed as an inherent right, such an accusation was not a light matter.

Fierce competition was already brewing in the nearby mountainous regions, indicating that the pressures were quite evident as early as the 1860s. The Anglo-Swiss Condensed Milk Company, based in Cham (a town not far from Zurich), was not named as such because its founders were English or Swiss, but because these two countries offered the most promising markets for its products. Charles A. Page, born in the United States, had gained an in-depth understanding of Swiss agricultural production through his role as the US Consul in Zurich. Together with his brother George, he spent time in the US studying the condensed milk business with Borden before returning to Switzerland to found the company in 1866. Their plan was a resounding success: their best customers were in Britain, which served as an added bonus for international trade, as Britain possessed a network of dependent colonies beyond its own shores. Their worst customers were in Switzerland, where consumers showed a strong preference for fresh, natural products.

The Page brothers demonstrated a unique flexibility that companies with a more limited product range, such as Nestlé, could not match at the turn of the 19th and 20th centuries. Milk is a raw material whose yield fluctuates with the seasons, a characteristic that led to periodic surpluses in factory supplies; consequently, the brothers began to diversify their product line. In some regions, they used the surplus milk to produce cheese and other innovative dairy products that sound less like items from the Victorian era and more like modern creations from the Starbucks age, such as coffee milk, cocoa milk, and chocolate milk. After forty turbulent and profitable years, the Anglo-Swiss Condensed Milk Company merged with Nestlé during the corporate merger wave of 1905. It was only then that Nestlé began producing the milk chocolate that is now a household name worldwide.

The imperial era at the turn of the century gave rise to a vast global network for the canned milk market. As part of the British colonies, Canadian farms and factories supplied consumers both near and far. The Caribou Condensed Milk Company, located in Nova Scotia, served local fishing and logging communities, where the men working there had an urgent need for canned milk in their coffee cups. Mining stations in Alaska and the Yukon also procured the product. Milk from Canadian factories was shipped to other distant territories of the British Empire, with traces of condensed milk appearing even in some cities in South Africa and Japan. (The Australian market had already been captured by Nestlé and had become the company’s second-largest market by the turn of the century.) In 1912, the Canadian company’s largest buyer was Cuba, where the tropical heat made the production of dairy products exceptionally difficult. Global demand for canned milk products never ceased, forcing dairy cows in North America and Europe to continuously increase their output.

However, it was not only North American and European cows that were affected; condensed milk factories even emerged in the Far East, utilising milk from imported cows. After 1868, Japan, undergoing the Meiji Restoration, was deeply influenced by Western diet and culture, paving the way for the development of a domestic dairy industry. In particular, the introduction of coffee-drinking habits provided a significant gateway for the Japanese people to encounter milk and created a substantial gap in dairy demand. By 1890, Japan began focusing on scientific research to promote the development of its domestic condensed milk industry. Meanwhile, a familiar pattern emerged: in 1897, Japan occupied Taiwan in China and demanded that the local infrastructure match that of the homeland; thus, they transported cows from Japan to the lands of Taiwan. (However, the habit of drinking milk was not widespread in China at the time, and the number of dairy cows in China actually decreased after the Second World War.) Simultaneously, condensed milk production in Japan had reached saturation; after the First World War, mainland China and the islands in the South China Sea became consumer markets for Japanese condensed milk. Based on some incomplete evidence, these canned products were likely ultimately used as baby food.

At the same time, dairy farmers themselves were striving to find ways to capture the market by using industrial means to produce high-quality, affordable, and portable foods. Cheese “workshops” contributed an operational model that mass-produced cheese products and entered urban markets in bulk via commercial agents. In reality, this model was far less industrial than it sounds: although they used equipment capable of large-scale production, the workshops’ profitability relied more on economies of scale than on mechanised production. Factories purchased milk and cream from individual dairy farmers for centralised processing, enabling the bulk sale of dairy products with standardised quality and specifications—a model that urban distributors were more willing to accept. In the 1840s, dairy farmers in New York State were the first to adopt this method and achieved great success; before long, their products defeated their biggest competitor—British cheese—in the London market. In terms of quality, their products performed well in the mass market, forcing farmers across the Atlantic to pivot their livelihoods toward liquid milk. Butter factories based on the same principle sprang up across Britain to absorb the surplus supply of raw materials. In some regions, butter factories were combined with pigsties, where livestock fed on the waste produced during butter-making (better known as buttermilk) grew exceptionally fat.

The evolution of milk developed based on the practical experience of entrepreneurs and the patterns of transnational migration. A pivotal development in the history of consumption culture appeared after this critical juncture: in the final decades of the 19th century, several highly successful milk-based products emerged. One was malted milk, a mixture of maltose and milk powder, which was a food with a texture similar to baby food intended for adults.

At the turn of the 19th and 20th centuries, cold drinks and chocolate confectionery appeared, expanding the possibilities for milk to be rebranded and disguised for market entry. Maltesers were one such product, made by “cutting malted milk that had been dried in a vacuum pan into strips, coating them in chocolate syrup, and wrapping them in tin foil once dried”. As the disposable income of the affluent urban population increased, the demand for milk became closely and significantly linked to sugars in the food history of the 19th century. In the mid-19th century, sugar consumption surged in Europe and the United States: in Britain alone, annual per capita sugar consumption rose from 17 lbs in 1844 to 60 lbs by 1876. Coupled with the appearance of powdered and block chocolate—both innovative products requiring deep processing—milk, as an essential star ingredient in the commodities people craved, naturally saw a sharp rise in demand.

The emergence of another commodity placed new, immense pressure on milk production: ice cream, hailed as “one of the most successful products among all dairy foods”. The modern history of ice cream reveals an interesting paradox that draws our attention to the process of commodification discussed in this chapter. Although ice cream has a long and multicultural history, the product eventually acquired the characteristics of American culinary methods, turning it into an “American” commodity.

What made American ice cream so successful? Perhaps it was simply because they mastered the trick of mass production early on. As early as the 1840s, Nancy Johnson invented a hand-cranked churn; this device required only a bucket of ice and some salt to make home production simple. This churning technology created a product that was noticeably “lighter and softer” because a large amount of air was incorporated during the freezing of the cream. Some reports suggest that in various American ice cream products, this “churning” and “expansion” process “could increase the volume of the final product to 1.8 times that of the raw cream”. By chance, the processing of ice cream successfully replicated a signature trait of the country—abundance and plenty.

However, its success was not entirely due to the quality and quantity of the product; the success of American ice cream owed much to clever marketing strategies. The various sales tactics of American street vendors are worth mentioning; as early as the 1820s, phrases like “I scream, Ice Cream” were already circulating on the streets of New York. At the beginning of the 20th century, a new mass-market demand emerged. Credit should be given to the legendary Syrian immigrant Ernest A. Hamwi, one of the people claimed to have invented the ice cream waffle cone. At the 1904 St. Louis World’s Fair, he placed ice cream in a waffle cone, giving it unique portability.

Subsequently, several other innovative products quickly joined the competition in the North American market: in 1919, chocolate-coated ice cream bars appeared; in 1920, “Good Mood” ice cream, featuring various flavour fillings and crushed nuts in the outer chocolate shell, hit the market; by 1923, Dixie cups for ice cream had become a success. Margaret Visser noted that the pronunciation of the word “Dixie” sounded patriotic and musical, appearing vibrant, clean, and fashionable. Visser provides a very interesting description of American ice cream history, depicting a consumption culture that closely intertwined milk with the expanding spirit of capitalist enterprise.

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