DISTRIBUTION OF MILK 97 



the latter's product is already everywhere sold by 

 grocers. 



Thus it would appear that the store has definite and 

 necessary functions to perform and that it cannot with 

 advantage be entirely eliminated as a vendor of whole 

 milk. 



Let us then take up the other side of the problem and 

 ask whether or not the store can take over the entire 

 service of retail milk distribution. There are several 

 reasons why this cannot advantageously be done. 



In the first place, milk requires daily distribution. 

 Nature does not recognize Sundays nor holidays; stores 

 do. Cows give milk on Sundays as well as on week days. 

 The processes of deterioration operate every day of the 

 year. These two factors make it impractical for consumers 

 as a whole to lay in on Saturday a supply of milk sufficient 

 to last over Sunday. Were the stores to make deliveries 

 on Sundays and on holidays, their entire delivery system 

 would have to work for a time on those days as on any 

 other days. There are in Columbus approximately eight 

 hundred stores of one sort or another which sell milk. It 

 would obviously be expensive and unsatisfactory for this 

 large group to perform a service which is now rendered 

 by about forty producers and milk dealers. Again, stores 

 do not make daily deliveries to all their customers. Many 

 make no deliveries at all, and none deliver to every cus- 

 tomer every day. The present tendency, moreover, is 

 to cut down deliveries still further. For stores to deliver 

 milk daily to all their customers and to any others who 

 might wish to buy milk from them would mean many 

 additional stops for the delivery of milk alone, which would 

 result in increased delivery costs for stores and vastly 

 more duplication than now exists. 



