The Milk Rebellion

For years Connecticut's milkmen have had things pretty much their own way. The state consumed so much (1,128,500 quarts daily), yet produced so little (40% of its supplies are imported), that local dealers boosted prices until they were charging 31-c- per quart for home-delivered milk, 28-c- for store-bought. That was too much for Connecticut's housewives. Last week, after a two-year revolt, they won their fight--with a little help from a hustling supermarket. Grade A milk was down to as low as 19-c- a quart in the stores, and home-delivered milk was down 3-c- to 28-c- a quart.

Led by two Hartford housewives, Mrs. Barbara Sanzo, mother of five, and Mrs. Laura Pope, mother of four, the women formed the Connecticut Milk Consumers Association to agitate against state milk laws that made it easy to keep prices high, particularly a 30-year-old law forbidding the sale of milk in economy-size half-gallon and gallon jugs. Holding public meetings, going on radio and TV pressuring legislators, the women raised such a rumpus that Connecticut's legislature passed a pair of bills legalizing both half-gallon and gallon jugs. But even then milk prices stayed high until a supermarket chain began a price war.

Mott's Super Markets, operating in Hartford, New Haven and two other towns, started selling half-gallon glass jugs at 43-c-, soon followed with a full gallon jug for 76-c-. Mott's milk sales rose 50% in three months, and other stores soon followed suit. Last week the victory was complete: Connecticut's three major chains, A. & P., First National, Stop & Shop, bowed to the demand for cheaper milk and started selling gallon jugs at 76-c- around the state. In the Hartford area alone, the saving for consumers amounts to some $40,000 daily. Says Consumers Association Founder Pope: "We certainly are not trying to drive dairies or farmers out of business. We only know that the price of milk was too high."

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