Guest Columns

Perspective:
Industry Issues

The fight for flavored milk

Julien Biolley

Gregg Doud, president and CEO, National Milk Producers Federation, contributes this column for Cheese Market News®.

I recently had a conversation with a concerned parent telling me that chocolate milk is “bad for you” and we should not be giving it to children in schools. I understood where the parent was coming from — parents today are bombarded with conflicting nutrition advice, and wanting to limit how much sugar our kids consume is a sensible instinct. As a parent myself, I share it.

That same week, the Wall Street Journal published an article about how school districts across the country are struggling with students drinking record numbers of high-caffeine energy drinks.

I know that nutrition, especially involving American kids, is a hot-button issue these days, and it’s one that people care deeply about. They deserve clear information to help them make good choices. It’s frustrating to me that flavored milk is getting a bad rap when so many children are drinking beverages with known stimulative effects, artificial additives and minimal nutrition. So, I wanted to step back and ask a simple question: What are the facts?

It is an indisputable fact that flavored milk — at any fat level — provides the same 13 essential nutrients as unflavored white milk. Children who drink flavored milk consume more milk overall and have higher intakes of vitamin D, calcium, potassium and other nutrients. And studies show flavored milk consumption is associated with better overall diet quality without any adverse effect on weight.

Milk is good for you.

Flavored milk is also good for you.

It seems so obvious to me.

But no matter how much we share the science backing up flavored milk, it is consistently criticized and called “unhealthy.” Why? According to critics, that’s easy: added sugars.

FDA says that consuming too much added sugar can make it difficult to meet nutrient needs while staying within calorie limits. The 2025-2030 Dietary Guidelines for Americans take a more aggressive stance on limiting added sugars than in previous years, stating that each meal should contain no more than 10 grams of added sugars. And because the food served in school meals must follow the dietary guidelines, flavored milk and yogurt are at risk of being severely restricted or removed from school meals entirely.

But flavored milk contributes just 4% of added sugars in the diets of children ages 2 to 18. Moreover, dairy processors have voluntarily cut added sugars in flavored milk in schools by 57% since 2006. Beginning with the 2025-2026 school year, 37 fluid milk processors made the Healthy School Milk Commitment, agreeing to provide flavored milk cartons with no more than 10 grams of added sugar per 8-ounce serving. Currently, flavored school milk on average has only 7 to 8 grams of added sugar per serving, lower than ever before.

This matters because of what children actually drink. Roughly 7% of fluid milk sales in the United States is school milk, and about two-thirds of that is flavored milk. Studies have shown that food waste in schools is reduced when flavored milk is offered, and kids consistently choose flavored milk over unflavored milk. A carton of milk that gets finished delivers far more nutrition than one that ends up in the trash.

Demonizing flavored milk because of a few extra grams of added sugar is, in my book, missing the forest for the trees. The American Academy of Pediatrics has said in a policy statement: “a beverage such as flavored milk provides a good example of the balance needed to limit added sugars and yet promote nutrient-rich foods.”

And that’s the key. Balance. What the anti-added-sugars argument is missing is that, unlike many other sugar-sweetened beverages, flavored milk is jam-packed with nutrients that all humans, especially kids, need for growth and development.

Unfortunately, the anti-added-sugars rhetoric may be winning right now in Washington.

USDA’s Food and Nutrition Administration in July submitted to the Office of Management and Budget a proposed rule for aligning Child Nutrition Program requirements with the recommendations in the 2025-2030 Dietary Guidelines for Americans. There is a strong chance from what we have heard that this rule will lower the added sugars limits in the school lunch and breakfast programs, including very specific limits for flavored milk and yogurt.

Currently, flavored milk in schools can have no more than 10 grams of added sugars per 8 fluid ounces. Even in the unlikely event that those limits stay the same, the aggressive stance in the new dietary guidelines of no more than 10 grams of added sugars per meal would force schools to choose between serving flavored milk and having any added sugars at all in the other foods served.

If such a reduction means that milk’s obvious nutritional benefits end up in the garbage, then we have failed at the very purpose of providing nutritional guidelines in the first place.

A chocolate milk mustache is better than no mustache at all.

CMN

The views expressed by CMN’s guest columnists are their own opinions and do not necessarily reflect those of Cheese Market News®.

© 2026 Cheese Market News • Quarne Publishing, LLC • Legal Information • Online Privacy Policy • Terms and Conditions
Cheese Market News • Business/Advertising Office: P.O. Box 24 • Sun Prairie, WI 53590 • 608/831-6002
Cheese Market News • Editorial Office: 5315 Wall Street, Suite 100 • Madison, WI 53718 • 608/288-9090