SMITH'S School Milk Scores Big with Kids

19/02/07 Smith Dairy Products Company, the leading regional maker of dairy products, beverages, and ice cream, has figured out how to capture the energy of a pep rally in a bottle...with its new SMITH'S single-serve and Limited Edition flavors school milk product lines.

With electrifying label graphics, quick-open grab-and-go-play plastic bottles, and slurp-able flavors like Strawberry, Vanilla, Chocolate, and Orange Cream, SMITH'S school milk is already scoring big with kids, following the line's introduction in January.

"We wanted to encourage healthier, more nutritious, and fun choices at the school lunch line," said Penny Baker, Director of Marketing at Smith Dairy. "When we saw studies that show kids will drink more milk if they're given more flavor options in appealing packages, we decided to jump-start our product lines by looking to the kids themselves for inspiration."

The packaging captures the pep and spirit of energetic kids of all ages, from elementary to high school. The label practically explodes off the bottle, with silhouettes of students playing sports, skateboarding, and diving against a background of stylized splashes, streaks, and bolts of lightning. The design shouts vitality and activity while suggesting the positive, healthy results of drinking nutritious milk.

The Limited Edition flavor line of school milk is another way Smith Dairy hopes to promote milk consumption. "The rotating flavors will keep kids interested in choosing milk throughout the year," said Baker. "Shoppers get excited about our Limited Edition ice cream flavors, so we think students will get excited about our Limited Edition school milk flavors, too."

SMITH'S line of single serve school milk is available in 1% lowfat and 2% reduced fat white milk, 1% lowfat chocolate milk, and 1% lowfat strawberry flavor milk, all in the specially designed half-pint plastic packaging with easy-open screw-top caps.

The Limited Edition 1% lowfat milk flavors are available in rotation, also in the redesigned packaging. Smith Dairy offers Vanilla from January through March and Orange Cream from April through the end of the school year.

Kids know they love the flavor of the milk and the look of the bottles, which sport SMITH'S signature yellow color, but what they may not realize is that the yellow is the scientific secret behind the brand's fresh taste. Lab studies prove that bottles made of yellow plastic block harmful light that affects flavor and depletes vitamins.

The plastic bottles aren't just eye-catching and designed to keep milk fresher and better tasting, but they're also easily stacked, displayed, or stocked in vending machines so schools can stash SMITH'S milk wherever students might work up a thirst. The bottles are conveniently easy to open, grab, and gulp for kids on the go, and they're 100 percent recyclable, unlike some traditional school milk cartons.

Smith Dairy decided to reenergize its school milk product line after National Dairy Council and American School Food Service Association research showed that milk consumption rose dramatically when kids were offered multiple flavors of milk in plastic bottles that were highly visible and readily available in several campus locations and in vending machines, so they could drink milk throughout the day.