“Consumption of milk per capita has gone down every year over the last 30 years,” says Sylvain Charlebois, director of the Agri-Food Analytics Lab at Dalhousie University. “Actually, it’s gone down by more than 20 per cent since 2015.”
While bagged milk is often cited as a unique Canadianism, it’s actually not sold west of Ontario. Those who prefer it, however, say it’s more cost efficient and some even believe it tastes better.
I just had a shower thought, probably dumb and I am tired, but how about pipes to deliver regular liquids/fluids? 🤔
I think I read somewhere in Germany brewery would have pipes to bars delivering a continuous supply of beer.
Now let’s do that with ultrafiltered and/or ultra-high-temperature milk (less prone to spoiling).
How about adding pipes for beer (or some other alcohol or wine), cooking oil (whichever most suitable), and any other frequently used liquid I forgot?
If spoilage is well controlled, would that be a less energy intensive distribution method?
Keen for beer plumbing.
If we’re piping allergens straight into people’s homes, might as well have another one for peanut butter.
Just imagine the initial costs and maintenance costs of those pipes. It’s already expensive routing water for people’s houses. It’s much less costly to do what was done in the past and have regular deliveries for those products in a reusable glass container and regular pickups of those containers. You also wouldn’t really get a choice on the variant of the liquid you want like the type of beer, oil, or milk since everyone has their own preference or needs like with allergies.
Imagine if someone moves into a new house with a beer service line installed and they don’t drink beer. The beer in that line would go bad and get really disgusting and probably contaminate beer in the rest of the line. The same goes for milk too. Imagine how disgusting a pipe filled with months old milk would be. Even ultra high temperature pasteurization won’t save it. Imagine if you get a leak in your milk or beer pipe. Imagine if gets too cold or hot for the liquid and you get really warm beer out of the line or a slushy beer solution.
If you can guarantee those service lines will be used regularly, then I can see it being worth it since the maintenance costs and installation costs would be outweighed by the savings. Beer lines from a brewery to bars makes sense since the bars will be regularly going through a constant supply of beer. But on a regular consumer level, it’s not worth it.
Tl;dr It’s a logistical nightmare.
It’s also a health nightmare. Beer and oil are some of the unhealthiest liquids you can consume (for different reasons, and in excessive quantities obviously), and having a functionality unlimited supply of them directly to your home would wreak havoc on the health of people with low self control or addiction issues. Like imagine an alcoholic living with the prospect of unlimited beer they could access at literally any time they wanted. That would be hell for them.
It’s been proposed. Do a search for “soup tubes.”