Milk is not alone in losing market share. Soda and orange juice are some other long-time beverage giants that have fielded sputtering national sales totals in recent years.
Domestic milk consumption fell 2.1 percent last year in numbers just released by USDA. Overall fluid milk sales fell from 2012's 53 billion to 51.9 billion pounds for the most recent year. On a gallon-jug basis, that is 129 million gallons in lost sales.
Among individual fluid milk categories, only 2-percent milk grew sales. Whole, 1-percent, skim and all flavored milks - that is chocolate milk, folks - were down compared to 2012.
When looking at the past decade, fluid milk sales fell 3.7 percent or 234 million gallons. While that number isn't far off what happened in the past year, it doesn't factor in U.S. population growth.
Over the past decade, our nation welcomed 26 million people as population grew from 2003's 291 million people to 317 million at the end of last year.
Can the fluid milk market be turned around?
That's an ongoing debate. To date, there haven't been too many promising success stories. It appears consumers are much more willing to eat their dairy products than drink them.