We bought a (plastic) bottle of milk today (16th November) and it had the rather surprising use-by date of 29th November, 13 days in the future.
This is just full-cream milk, not UHT or anything like that. I thought of milk as something you consumed within a week or it would go off, but this seems to claim it is good for two weeks. (After all we bought it on a Sunday, presumably the packing took place a day or so earlier).
Over here in the Netherlands, this 'best before' date has been about 2 weeks for about 2 years i think.
The cheapest brand has still about a single week printed on it.
Can't taste a difference, before you could see the milk degrade (small fatty / creamy spots floating on top) close to expiration date and that doesn't seem to happen anymore (that fast).
So perhaps new methods have been found, better packaging or storage conditions before it;s in the shops.
Who knows.
It's a marketing ploy. Some producers were selling "only A2" milk from cows tested to have A2 protein. Normal milk is a combination (depending on the cows, and how the milk is mixed).
So all the label is saying that "it contains some A2 milk 'naturally' ". It's like saying it contains "some water naturally".
Milk is something that I never really read the use-by date on after I buy it (I check it once before I buy it just in case the date is coming up fast). My nose knows better than the date.
I buy ultra-pasteurized milk (in a waxed cardboard carton) that has an expiration about a month or so from sale. It recommends use within 15 days of opening, and I regularly bump up against that before finishing it off.
I don't use much milk, pretty much just what goes in my morning latte, so if it expired within 2 weeks of sale and 3 days of opening, I would throw out way more than I used.
That's the big difference in the shelf life. A farmer would pasteurize his milk at 145F for 30 minutes, but with today's commercial scales it's being zapped at much higher temperatures for shorter time periods. Ultra-pasteurized milk is being hit around 230F for a second or so and has a shelf life of many months.
I'm guessing that you still see that as only ~2-3 weeks due to various regulations to protect you from not-fully-proper handling of the pasteurization process or sterilization of the containers, etc. Probably a bit of farmer influence as well since they wouldn't like to see huge stockpiles of milk sitting around which would damage their commodity prices. Or maybe the milk distributor just doesn't want the customer noticing these changes to pasteurization that have been occurring over the years?