Wal-Mart now selling its own milk -- without added hormones

Posted Mar 24th 2008 12:25PM by Brian White
Filed under: Products and Services, Wal-Mart (WMT)

Wal-Mart Stores, Inc. (NYSE: WMT) indicated last week that it would begin selling milk under its own private label brand ("Great Value") that is not sourced from cows that have been treated with growth hormones. There are already several brands of milk that have this feature (generally, the "organic" brands), but this is the first time I've seen a Wal-Mart store brand make a major move like this.

Growth hormones are administered to cows to increase their milk production, but critics argue that the injections lead to less healthy cows which are, in turn, more likely to be treated with antibiotics. It's been widely reported that most normal supermarket milk is sourced from cows that have been treated with artificial hormones, although without national testing and a complete statistical sampling, it's hard to tell which have been treated and which have not been.

Preventcancer.com even says that most European countries and Canada ban importation of U.S. milk for this very reason. So my question to Wal-Mart is this: is the new "Great Value" milk choice being offered nationally in all U.S. stores? If so, where is the list of your suppliers? It's hard to think that the world's largest retailer could instantly start offering hormone-free milk to its stores without turning the natural dairy industry on its head overnight. The retailer says it is bowing to consumer demand here, which is good. Still -- are there enough dairy suppliers that don't treat their herds with artificial hormones to cater to Wal-Mart's needs?

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Tags: dairy hormones, DairyHormones, Milk hormoes, MilkHormoes, wal-mart, wal-mart stores, Wal-martStores, WMT

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Reader Comments (Page 5 of 5)

3-26-2008 @ 12:55AM

lin said...

The only comment worth reading is#10.

Why do we drink milk???? What do you eat with your oreos?

It's amazing how educated some of you are. *Rolls eyes*.

3-26-2008 @ 5:56PM

too expensive said...

I just know that ... I am paying $7.70 for a gallon of milk... organic... I buy the lowest priced one in the store...

4-04-2008 @ 5:19PM

Em said...

No wonder everyones fat. They keep putting cr*p in our food, we don't know what's in it, and with these hormones they add to meat and milk, we are paying the price with our health. I've never had a problem losing weight in my life, but since being here (only been in the US 6 months) I have put on weight and cannot get rid of it!!

4-14-2008 @ 1:09AM

Ralph Grohman said...

Main Cause of Heart (not a) "disease"?

All dairy products, whether low fat or no fat, whether powdered or in the form of cheese, ice cream, butter, or yogurt; even those traces of dairy in processed and packaged foods – including all cereals and bread/pastry products are the primary cause of heart maladies.

HERE'S HOW: The milk enzymes freed off the good fat molecules during pasteurization in dairy and kept from re-attaching by homogenization remain in the bloodstream for weeks and sometimes months, because they are foreign to our body and our kidneys have to relearn every time, we ingest them, how to remove them.
This extended time in our bloodstream causes small pockets to develop along all arterial and venial walls. The process takes from eight to ten years of dairy consumption. Because LDL is lighter and also stickier, that is what is found inside the blood vessels --- all of them! But since presence is not actually causation (Our AMA and scientists do not know that!) milk, not LDL is the culprit. It’s such a shame that we are one of the few countries that don’t know that fact.
It is so amazing to me that most are not aware of these causes, but even more so the fatalistic attitude that I hear when someone says: “Well, almost everything is bad for you.” They are almost totally correct. But if we as our own person cannot start making some changes in our eating habits, then we will have to stay in that part of the actuaries that defines heart ‘disease’ as the major cause of death in the USA and it actually enters into either the primary or secondary cause of death in sixty percent of all deaths. If you do not make the necessary changes you and all of you children, etc. whose eating habits you help develop in their early years; those habits that are passed down from one generation to another by YOU will all join in the 60% of Americans that are either going to die from heart ‘disease’ or of it being a main contributory factor. One great fallacy among most Americans is that deaths always happen to others. That is so true until it happens to you, and that will be only once, compared to the many others that you hear about.

4-14-2008 @ 12:31PM

Scott Kochman said...

Price Chopper sells milk that is hormone free and not organic. Its price is about halfway between regular and organic.

4-28-2008 @ 2:57PM

jr said...

I don't like Wal-Mart but because of my financial status, I am forced to shop there because of their lower prices. BTW, I buy the Stonyfield Farm 1% low fat milk which is certified USDA. The USDA is very stringent when it comes to calling a product organic. I only wish they'd put as much time and energy into all the other foods which AREN'T organic. So much for the "great" USA.