Cleveland Is America’s Top (Milk) Drinking City

CLEVELAND, OH — When the Cavaliers won the NBA title, concessionaires at the Q weren’t selling out of Cleveland’s beverage of choice. When the Indians took on the Cubs in the World Series, this wasn’t washing down the peanuts and Crackerjacks. But President-elect Donald Trump, who doesn’t drink alcohol, may have been calming his nerves with it between speeches leading up to his historic nomination at Republican National Convention held in Cleveland last summer.

If he did, no one snapped a photo of a telltale remains that have betrayed many a drinker of this beverage. Or perhaps the president-elect is simply more delicate, sipping rather than gulping.

Whatever the case, the answer in Cleveland to the dairy industry’s slogan question — “Got Milk?” — is yes. Cleveland loves milk, it turns out, buying it in greater quantities than anywhere else in the United States. (You figured Wisconsin, “America’s Dairyland,” would lay claim to the honor, didn’t you?)

This is all according to the Denver-based mobile shopping app ibotta.com — say it aloud, “I bought a …” — which said Cleveland tops all other U.S. cities in milk purchases, based on an analysis of some 34 million grocery receipts collected in 2016.

And guess what? No Wisconsin cities appeared on the Top 5 list of milk-buying cities. (There may be a “why buy the milk when you can get it from the cow for free” joke in there somewhere, but it’s probably best not to go there.)

The Top 5 were:

1. Cleveland, Ohio
2. Philadelphia, Pennsylvania
3. Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania
4. Raleigh-Durham, North Carolina
5. Dallas-Fort Worth, Texas

The findings, released on Jan. 11, National Milk Day, also sheds light the different ways Americans consume milk:

• Straight from the cereal bowl: Almost two-thirds of respondents say they drink leftover cereal milk, with another 10 percent saying it depends on the cereal.
• With a little chocolate: Nearly 70 percent of consumers prefer chocolate syrup over chocolate powder when making homemade chocolate milk.
• By the expiration date: Approximately 45 percent of respondents say they will never drink milk past its expiration date, while a bold one-third say they will drink milk more than two days past the expiration mark.
• Out of the carton: Grossing out germaphobes everywhere, a full one-third of respondents copped to drinking milk straight from the carton.
• In their coffee: Consumers' love of milk extends to coffee as well, with almost 60 percent of all responders saying they prefer milk or cream with their daily cup.

The survey also found that, despite the growth of dairy-free milk products in recent years, 2 percent milk is still the most purchased variety, followed by whole milk.

Photo by Marina Shemesh via Flickr Commons