Howard's End: “Too Late Bugger Milk”

Soft-drink giant, Coca-Cola, plans to launch a new milk-based drink in July aimed at children and teenagers called "Swerve", but Scoop reckons NZ milk producers should counter-punch and launch a competition flavoured milk product called "Too late, Bugger." Maree Howard writes.

US media are reporting that the Atlanta-based Coca-Cola Company plans to launch a new milk-based drink for the American summer market which will come in three flavours: chocolate, vanilla/banana and blueberry.

Coca-Cola has been developing and testing milk drinks for about three years.

To be called Swerve, made with 52 per cent skim milk, the flavoured mild drink will be sold in 330g cans which will have on the label a figure of a grinning cow wearing dark glasses. So Cool, eh!

Last year the company introduced "Choglit" a chocolate flavoured drink in direct competition to Yoo-Hoo a brand that has been on the Ameircan market since the 1920's. The Yoo-Hoo brand is owned by the confectionery and soft-drink giant Cadbury-Schweppes.

Pepsi's SoBe unit also has a chocolate dairy drink called Love Bus Brew which is made with milk, Dutch chocolate and a blend of vitamins and ginseng.

Although the markets for these types of flavoured milk drinks are relatively small, but growing, in US soft-drink terms, they are huge in New Zealand terms meaning that what might be seen as a niche market by American producers, would be huge volumes for our dairy producers.

Dairy Company, Fonterra, is also understood to have the contract in New Zealand to produce the Starbucks brand "Frappachino, for the Pacific market but that appears to be small potatoes in comparison to the global market for flavoured milk-based drinks.

Anyway, our family has been making its version of "Frappachino" for decades and we reckon it also tastes better than the modern Starbucks version. As kids hanging around milk bars in the 1960's we used to call it by a much simpler name - iced coffee.

I like flavoured milk in small quanities while travelling in the car, have missed breakfast and want some kind of lining in my stomach. But the stuff we buy comes in these small cardboard cartons and tastes like it. I think they use heated treated milk which they call UHT - to me it always has a tainted tasts so we don't buy it regularly.

There is another flavoured milk product which comes in a small plastic bottle and for me tastes much better, but a wider range of flavours like, for instance, the new Swerve blueberry would be good.

Would I drink Coca-Cola's "Swerve" - probably. But I would prefer something NZ which has a bit of fun and takes the mickey out of the big Corporates - something more NZ like; "Too late, Bugger"

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