What would a boomer say about groceries and oat milk?
Boomers had milk left on the doorstep in glass bottles. Now there's a whole aisle of it made from oats. Here's the Boomer on the weekly shop, followed by the real numbers.
Ask a Boomer: groceries and oat milk Comedy, not advice
Neither! Milk comes from a cow, delivered to your doorstep at six in the morning by a man called Ken on an electric float.
Blending up your porridge and pouring it in your tea is not milk, it's a cry for help. Get a pint of gold top and fight the blue tits for it like the rest of us.
Anyway, why did the cow cross the road? To get to the udder side! Udder!
Four pounds for a sandwich, some crisps and a fizzy drink?! I made fish-paste sandwiches for pennies and carried them in the same Tupperware box for thirty years.
Take a flask of tea and a Scotch egg to work like a grown-up. The Tupperware will outlive us all.
Anyway, what's a ghost's favourite pudding? I scream! Ho ho ho!
Order food on the computer? And let a stranger pick your tomatoes?! Never!
You go to the market on a Saturday morning with a tartan shopping trolley and a list on the back of an envelope, and you squeeze every melon personally. Then you go home and complain about the prices, like your grandmother did.
Anyway, what's the best time to go to the dentist? Tooth-hurty! My dentist didn't laugh either.
The real numbers
- Doorstep delivery fell from 86% of liquid milk sales in England and Wales in 1982 to 60% in 1992, the agriculture minister told Parliament.
Source: Hansard, House of Lords, Agriculture Bill, 23 November 1992 (England and Wales, 1982 and 1992) - A pint of pasteurised milk cost an average of 21p in 1983. The same ONS price series stood at 65p in January 2025.
Source: ONS, RPI average price: milk, pasteurised, per pint (CZNT) (UK, 1983 and January 2025) - Plant-based drinks accounted for 4.3% of the times milk was used at home in the year to June 2025, against 94.8% for cow's milk.
Source: AHDB, Consumer insight: milking the opportunity (August 2025) (UK, 52 weeks to 15 June 2025)