Milk is cheaper than water - really?

Last week dairy farmers protested about the price they were being paid for their milk. To me this is market economics, supply and demand etc..

However, i noticed a Tweet from @ukdairyfarmers saying it was terrible that the supermarkets sold milk cheaper than bottled water, I then heard this stat reported on the radio, quoted from a newspaper article. The interviewer asked how much the water was - apparently that wasn't reported in the paper.

I thought I'd check

A standard 4 pinter at tesco online is £0.52 per litre

there are 48 bottled water products that are listed, 26 of these are cheaper than milk per litre (I am only looking at still unflavoured bottled water) and some of those included the 'small' bottles. I suggest that the fact was wrong.

What irks me is that the radio repeated the paper and neither bothered to check the fact.

I hate lazy journalism

Bottled water should be the most expensive thing on this planet. About as pointless and environmentally damaging as you can get - Range Rovers do less damage. Fortunately it seems to be in decline as people work out it's the same stuff that comes out of their taps (except 1000 times the price (true)) and that shipping plastic bottles full of water around the world on the back of lorries when we already have a built in distribution system (the tap again) makes no sense whatsoever.

Jamie Oliver and Hugh Fearnley Whittingstall have now picked up on this as well I wonder if they (their teams) checked the facts?

Spotted that. Plus the poster going around Facebook etc saying "Why should milk be cheaper than water" just perpetuating it now.

Yes, it's true that milk is cheaper than water, poor farmers.

Fine this is a tad off topic but it sure as hell concerns marketing and journalism....

"Future generations will find it bizarre that it was once considered healthy to drink the milk of another species....."

By that token I think they may find it bizarre that we drank anything other than water (it's all we need).

I'd go wayyy off topic so I'm out..

By my definition, no its not

I also don't get the point of the argument, lots of things are cheaper than other things, so what?

If the farmers are arguing that they are getting paid less than the cost of production then that is another (debatable) point

That is entirely my response, too. The price of things happens due to a variety of factors, but I doubt bottled water prices and milk prices influence each other much.

For sure, I like to see farmers get a fair reward for their efforts, and I do suspect supermarkets squeeze them too hard. But this comparison does not help me judge that issue.  I would need to understand the margins of farmers, shops, and transport companies to assess how fairly the loot is getting handed out.

Here, I can buy local milk from local shops. It is very convenient, and much the same price as supermarket milk.

Of course. It makes perfect  sense to drink milk in the UK that is shipped in from East Europe, China and Bangladesh.

I think we should try to emulate the wonderful lifestyle which makes their production so efficient.