Where has my Oak chocolate milk gone?

Am I obsessed with chocolate milk? Maybe, but it contains 2 important elements, milk and chocolate.

The Oak milk has gone missing!Visiting Woolworths at Town Hall, Sydney today I noticed a complete lack of Oak chocolate milk. Actually a complete lack of any Oak flavoured milk.

And not only was it missing from the shelves of the fridge. There was no shelf labels where it was missing. No empty space left for it to fill.

What is the world coming to?

Who is making these mad decisions about stock?

In place of the Oak milk on the shelf is a new brand, Goulburn Valley Dairy Co. So it looks like Coca Cola is moving into the flavoured milk market. Having realised that flavoured milk is a major competitor. It has decided to launch its own brand.

So, in the public interest, I bought a Goulburn Valley Dairy Co Milk Chocolate.

My advice about them is, don’t by one. I’m going to avoid doing so again.

I would say that it tasted a bit like milk, and a bit like chocolate. But in a bland reconstituted sort of way. Much like Goulburn Valley orange juice tastes like orange juice, only dehydrated then reconstituted with other stuff add in to mask the taste.

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16 Responses to Where has my Oak chocolate milk gone?

  1. Pingback: Get real taste? Try something else | Leefe rates the world...

  2. Brett says:

    I agree.I drink a lot of ice coffee flavoured oak milk.I have tried others like moove etc and they all taste the same,terrible.Yesterday the local shop keeper said that oak milk is not going to be made any more and the dairy farmers classic flavoured milk is taking its place.I tried one of these dairy farmers classic ice coffee’s and it was terrible.It tastes a lot like UHT (Ultra Heat Treated) milk products.The oak flavour is way superiour to any other ice coffee I have tried.I dont know why some of these companies dont make a flavoured milk that tastes the same as oak milk instead of them all tasting the same, All other brands I have tried just taste like UHT milk.
    Well Ive put my 2 cents worth in,Thanks.
    Brett

    • Leefe says:

      Looking a little further I see that, back in July last year, Parmalat took over the Oak brand [1]. Actually it seems that the Japanese-owned National Foods acquired Dairy Farmers, but had to divest themselves of some of the acquisition because of the competition regulator [2].

      I don’t think that production of Oak Coffee flavoured milk has ceased. My local Coles has both it and the chocolate variety (on days they haven’t run out of chocolate).

      So I think you need to take what your local shop keeper has said with a grain of salt. They have probably just decided to stop stocking it.

      • Maxine says:

        We have owned a General Store for over 6yrs now. Dairy Farmers won’t touch us because we don’t have a high turn over like Woolies & Coles. 1 of my Brother’s & i are or should i say were obsessed with Oak coffee & Oak chocolate & my other Brother is worse with Dare double espresso drinking 6 large bottles a day. Even telling Dairy Farmers that didn’t make them budge! So if you want people to complain please tell them to go direct to the company & not us little shops who don’t get a say in the matter! LoL

  3. PJ says:

    There’s adds on the radio at the moment encouraging people to tell shop owner’s to ring the supplier & get OAK back on the shelf.

    Production hasn’t ceased, it’s just Dairy Farmers trying to muscle out the competition with a crap product.

    The only way to get your beloved OAK back the shelf is to complain about the lack of it. Supply & demand my friends, it’s a assume economical tool.

    • Maxine says:

      We have owned a General Store for over 6yrs now. Dairy Farmers won’t touch us because we don’t have a high turn over like Woolies & Coles. 1 of my Brother’s & i are or should i say were obsessed with Oak coffee & Oak chocolate & my other Brother is worse with Dare double espresso drinking 6 large bottles a day. Even telling Dairy Farmers that didn’t make them budge! So if you want people to complain please tell them to go direct to the company & not us little shops who don’t get a say in the matter! LoL

  4. jamie says:

    Oak has been caned as has big m. But this is only in the long life product

    • Leefe says:

      Oak hasn’t been canned, thought I don’t know about Big M. It just lost market share/shelf space to other flavoured milk brands. And the recent addition of Dairy Farmers Classic milk, a product in directly competition with, has pushed it out of some stores by distributors telling shop owners it is replacing Oak as a a product. (Though they have different manufacturers.)

  5. Alex Derwin says:

    Oak is obviously far superior to all these other pretenders. There’s enough of us out there who think so. Surely we can get it back on the shelves. Let’s picket local stores. Let’s write a petition. Or at least let’s start a facebook group. Bring back our Oak milk. People power.

  6. Brendan McCalmont says:

    What a lie! Oak is the most revolting stuff ever. It tastes like liquified vomit. The Dairy Farmers Classic range is SO delicious it is better than a milkshake, even. It is a shame that now in March 2011 that Dairy Farmers Classic range seems to be phasing out. Shows that Style wins over substance in our world. Oak seems to be ever present because their company is rich and can power promote their disgusting flavoured milk with powderful advertising. Oak and Moove even leave a horrible taste in the mouth for hours after. Goulburn

    Dairy Milk Classic 10/10

    Goulburn Valley 7/10

    Brownes, Nippy’s 6/10

    Oak 4/10

    Moove 3/10

  7. Weirdo says:

    I am a huge fan of OAK chocolate milk and even more so of OAK strawberry milk by far the best flavoured milk on the market. However I am a little puzzled as to how my local Coles do not stock it but my local Shell service station (Coles owned) does???? And my local Woolworths do not stock it but my local Caltex service station (Woolies owned) does???? I am guessing there are more service stations than supermarkets and that may be part of the reason for the shift but personally I’d love to see full saturation of the market with the superior product that is OAK.

  8. Thomas says:

    Oak was the best flavoured milk on the market. In fact, I believe it was the only drinkable flavoured milk because #1. Dairy Farmers choc milk sucks, its so thin and doesn’t even taste like choc milk #2. Goulbourn Valley is thin and bad. #3. Moove was good but over the recent years has somewhat changed its recipe (I believe so anyway). Also, Oak used to produce the best damn vanilla ice cream in the world. That too, was discontinued!

  9. Professor Oak says:

    When the Dairy Farmers’ Classic first appeared at my local Woolworths in Ipswich (close to a year ago) it was accompanied with OAK branding. I thought it was just a redesigned OAK carton – the CLACCIC tagline being some kind of marketing cmapaign. But now the Classic has completely done away with the OAK name. I would agree that Classic is a thinner taste to the OAK I remember so fondly. I still get Classic but pine for my beloved OAK. Has anyone contacted Parmalat or Dairy Farmers to provide answers?

  10. Whobemessinwithme Oak says:

    Firstly ha ha that there are other people out there reeling from the shift in the world of choclate milk!!

    Well I discovered this just recently and have been trying to suss out what the fuck has happened to my Oak! It would appear that dairy farmers have sold the oak brand to parmlat and possibly the recipe. After the sale there must have been a phase out time frame included in the deal because here in queensland, as mentioned above, a little while ago, there were dairy farmers oak classic. Now it’s just classic. And the flavour has changed. And now in queensland there’s no oak any where!!! It’s dairy farmers classic and parmalat breakers.

    However oaks to seem to be in nsw still they’re now made by parmalat I had one whilst in sydney and it tasted pretty close to what an oak should taste like. So I’m guessing they bought the recipe also.

    Q. Do they have breakers in nsw?

    • mick says:

      daryfarmers classic and parmarlat Oak are both almost the same recipe and i got 600ml ctn of each choc to compare from cabultre bp north

  11. Gerard says:

    Short of thinking that maybe all the brown cows have died….I can’t understand why I can’t find my favourite Oak Chocolate Milk for weeks now. I have still been finding the Strawberry one which is very nice also. As far as them thinking that dedicated Oak Milk drinkers are going to start drinking Moove or the Woolies Brand…They can think again. They are both revolting crap and I only tried them once…Never again. My Wife and I used to stop at the Oak factory on our way back to Sydney for the best Milk Shakes ever. Now they are gone as well. Shame!

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