There’s a quiet revolution taking place in German milk drinking habits as Extended Shelf Life takes off.

The major proportion of drinking milk retailed in Germany has traditionally been cartoned UHT, with the remainder mainly pasteurised milk. From a total drinking milk consumption of 5.8 million tonnes in 2004, 63% was UHT .Last year, the UHT total included a rapidly rising proportion of Extended Shelf Life (ESL) products. Major retailers such as Rewe and Edeka are now strongly promoting ESL milk and last year the country’s Milch Industrie Verband (MIV) reckoned that between 20 and 25% of all drinking milk sales comprised ESL products. “This is an estimate because officially ESL milk sales are not recorded separately,” a MIV spokesman told Dairy Industries International. “But ESL milk has become popular and we know that consumption is rising rapidly.” Pasteurised milk consumption dropped by 1.6% in 2004 but UHT milk showed a slight gain of 0.6% in Germany and it is therefore estimated that ESL increases are mainly negatively affecting sales of pasteurised milk. Retailers say the longer shelf life of ESL (12 to 21 days) compared with pasteurised milk’s recommended five to six days plus the claimed ESL advantage over UHT of fresher taste due to the flash steam injection treatment, has helped ESL’s popularity in Germany. Austria also reports a steady upswing in ESL popularity which now has a market share of 5% of total drinking milk sales there.