When last have you checked the price tag of milk on the shelves at your favourite shop? Supermarkets are milking us dry with this clever little scam.
Pick 'n Pay and Spar run a devious ploy to rob the unsuspecting customer. The shelves will be filled with loose one-litre cartons of long life milk – taken out of the six-pack boxes and sold separately – with not a six-pack in sight. They both sell six-packs of milk for R59.99 (if you can find it) and loose cartons for R10.99 each.
I normally buy the long life *UHT-milk in six-packs, mostly for convenience, but probably because I have been conditioned to think in multiples of six-packs from my beer-drinking days.
And now, here’s today’s question for our in-studio, Grade 2, Maths class. Lennas, please ring your buzzers if you know the answer:
“If a super convenience-store, conveniently sells six-packs of one litre cartons of milk for R59.99 – how much does one convenient litre cost?
Buzzzz! “The answer is R9.99 per litre, sir.”
If you buy the one-litre milk cartons loose, they sell for R10.99 per litre each – a difference of R1.00 from the udders in the six-teat pack. Taking the cartons out of the six-packs increases the value of milk by R1.00 per litre. What is this called? Handling costs? Rip-off charges? Milking? You tell me!
One Rand might not seem like much, but in a country reported to be “swimming in a sea of poverty,” this might just be the final straw that broke the camel’s back.
And that’s not all!
If you buy the 500ml cartons you will have to fork out R6.29 per half-litre – or R75.48 for six litres.
Extrapolating the third harmonic, into resonance with the fundamental frequency of milk, proves that buying a cow would be much cheaper than purchasing 20ml of milk from the supermarket.
So, there you have it folks: Abracadabra! You are getting milked of your hard-earned cash.
Repeat after me: Mooo! Mooo! Mooo!
*UHT – “Ultra High Temperature processing,” this is just another way of heating milk to kill bacterial spores. In the pasteurization process, the milk is heated to 72°C for at least 15 minutes, whereas the UHT process heats the milk at 135°C for one to two seconds. This flash of extreme heat is said to burn the germans out of the cow’s udder – causing agonising pain to the poor beast. But who cares? As long as the milk is safe for human consumption!
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