🍼 Milk containers and tableware

Milk containers and tableware covers what milk is collected, carried, sold and drunk from: from the bucket and the milk churn to the bottle, the Tetra Pak carton, the drinking glass and the mug. EU rules require any container that touches milk to be easy to clean and made of smooth, washable, non-toxic materials.

For a long time milk was sold loose: the milkman ladled it out of large 40-quart churns, roughly 38 litres. One of the first milk bottles, according to the museum in Potsdam, New York, was devised by the pharmacist Harvey Thatcher in 1884 after he saw a doll fall into a milkman's churn. The first such bottles were blown by hand. On reusable bottles in the EU the identification mark may show only the country's initials and the plant's approval number.

The paper tetrahedron carton for milk was introduced in 1951 by the Swedish company Tetra Pak, founded that same year in Lund by Ruben Rausing. The first filling machine went to the local dairy in 1952, for cream in 100 ml cartons. In 1961 the company showed an aseptic machine that made it possible to pack milk free of bacteria and keep it without a refrigerator, and in 1969 the Tetra Brik Aseptic carton followed.

In the EU, consumer packs are sealed right after filling and any opening has to be clearly visible. UHT milk in an aseptically sealed pack has to stay stable for 15 days at 30 °C.

At home milk is poured into a jug or a creamer and drunk from a cup or a mug, while babies get a baby bottle.