Lewis Road Creamery is a

boutique A boutique () is a small shop that deals in fashionable clothing or accessories. The word is French for "shop", which derives ultimately from the Ancient Greek ἀποθήκη (''apothēkē'') "storehouse". The term ''boutique'' and also ''de ...

New Zealand New Zealand ( mi, Aotearoa ) is an island country in the southwestern Pacific Ocean. It consists of two main landmasses—the North Island () and the South Island ()—and over 700 smaller islands. It is the sixth-largest island coun ...

dairy A dairy is a business enterprise established for the harvesting or processing (or both) of animal milk – mostly from cows or buffaloes, but also from goats, sheep, horses, or camels – for human consumption. A dairy is typically located on ...

company, located in northern New Zealand. They produce a range of milk products, including varieties of

milk Milk is a white liquid food produced by the mammary glands of mammals. It is the primary source of nutrition for young mammals (including breastfed human infants) before they are able to digest solid food. Immune factors and immune-modulat ...

cream Cream is a dairy product composed of the higher-fat layer skimmed from the top of milk before homogenization. In un-homogenized milk, the fat, which is less dense, eventually rises to the top. In the industrial production of cream, this process ...

ice cream Ice cream is a sweetened frozen food typically eaten as a snack or dessert. It may be made from milk or cream and is flavoured with a sweetener, either sugar or an alternative, and a spice, such as cocoa or vanilla, or with fruit such as ...

and

butter Butter is a dairy product made from the fat and protein components of churned cream. It is a semi-solid emulsion at room temperature, consisting of approximately 80% butterfat. It is used at room temperature as a spread, melted as a condim ...

. The company is best known for its brand of chocolate milk, which in 2014 sparked a frenzied, nationwide

shortage In economics, a shortage or excess demand is a situation in which the demand for a product or service exceeds its supply in a market. It is the opposite of an excess supply ( surplus). Definitions In a perfect market (one that matches a s ...

2014 chocolate milk shortage

In October 2014, Lewis Road Creamery in conjunction with

Whittaker's J.H. Whittaker & Sons, Ltd (Whittaker's) is a confectionery manufacturer specialising in palm oil-free chocolate and based in Porirua, New Zealand. Whittaker's is the largest chocolate brand in New Zealand. Approximately 30% of their producti ...

Chocolate launched a new brand of chocolate milk. Initial production was staffed by around five people and totaled around 1000

liters The litre (international spelling) or liter (American English spelling) (SI symbols L and l, other symbol used: ℓ) is a metric unit of volume. It is equal to 1 cubic decimetre (dm3), 1000 cubic centimetres (cm3) or 0.001 cubic metre (m3). ...

, sold in 750ml and 300ml

bottle A bottle is a narrow-necked container made of an impermeable material (such as glass, plastic or aluminium) in various shapes and sizes that stores and transports liquids. Its mouth, at the bottling line, can be sealed with an internal s ...

s. Reaction to its release was overwhelmingly positive, centering on its remarkable richness and creaminess. Due to its immense

popularity In sociology, popularity is how much a person, idea, place, item or other concept is either liked or accorded status by other people. Liking can be due to reciprocal liking, interpersonal attraction, and similar factors. Social status can be ...

and

cult In modern English, ''cult'' is usually a pejorative term for a social group that is defined by its unusual religious, spiritual, or philosophical beliefs and rituals, or its common interest in a particular personality, object, or goal. Thi ...

appeal, nationwide demand was greater than the quantity supplied, resulting in a shortage that often saw stores sell out of supplies before the end of the morning. This shortage prompted local

supermarket A supermarket is a self-service shop offering a wide variety of food, beverages and household products, organized into sections. This kind of store is larger and has a wider selection than earlier grocery stores, but is smaller and more limit ...

s and

retail Retail is the sale of goods and Service (economics), services to consumers, in contrast to wholesaling, which is sale to business or institutional customers. A retailer purchases goods in large quantities from manufacturing, manufacturers, dire ...

ers to take extreme measures to secure stock and ensure fair purchasing. In some cases,

rationing Rationing is the controlled distribution of scarce resources, goods, services, or an artificial restriction of demand. Rationing controls the size of the ration, which is one's allowed portion of the resources being distributed on a particular ...

was implemented so as to limit the purchase to two bottles per person, and

security guard A security guard (also known as a security inspector, security officer, or protective agent) is a person employed by a government or private party to protect the employing party's assets (property, people, equipment, money, etc.) from a variety ...

s were hired to monitor shoppers and fridges containing chocolate milk. The shortage also resulted in the emergence of chocolate milk

black market A black market, underground economy, or shadow economy is a clandestine market or series of transactions that has some aspect of illegality or is characterized by noncompliance with an institutional set of rules. If the rule defines the ...

s, ranging from scalpers attempting to resell bottles on

TradeMe Trade Me is New Zealand's largest online auction and classifieds website. Managed by Trade Me Ltd., the site was founded in 1999 by New Zealand entrepreneur Sam Morgan, who sold it to Fairfax in 2006 for NZ$700 million. Trade Me was publicly ...

at three to four times their original price to

counterfeit To counterfeit means to imitate something authentic, with the intent to steal, destroy, or replace the original, for use in illegal transactions, or otherwise to deceive individuals into believing that the fake is of equal or greater value tha ...

chocolate milk production. Founder Peter Cullinane - formerly of

Saatchi & Saatchi Saatchi & Saatchi is a British multinational communications and advertising agency network with 114 offices in 76 countries and over 6,500 staff. It was founded in 1970 and is currently headquartered in London. The parent company of the agency gr ...

- insisted that they did not deliberately engineer the shortage as a marketing strategy. He claimed they were at first worried they couldn't sell the initial production of 1000 litres, but this worry turned out to be unfounded. He said they had a marketing budget of $60,000, but had to stop advertising after spending only a third of it because of unprecedented demand.

References

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External links

Life and death over chocolate milk: the madness of Lewis Road

Why has everyone fallen in love with Lewis Road Creamery?

All products made by Lewis Road Creamery
Dairy products companies of New Zealand New Zealand brands