Tara Kearsey
Northern News Services

Inuvik (Jan 24/03) - If you have been searching high and low for fresh milk over the past few weeks, you're not the only one.

Midtown Market employee Khaled El-Aajj checks the refrigerator Jan. 17 to find there are only four two-litre cartons of fresh milk left. - Tara Kearsey/NNSL photo

Walking through NorthMart's dairy section early last week, shoppers were disappointed to see there was not one container of fresh milk in sight.

"Basically we just had some shipping problems with the holidays, everything got backed up," said Northmart's grocery manager, Andrew Graham, last Thursday.

First NorthMart ran out of two-litre cartons, then four-litre, "and then at the end we only had skim and ultra pasteurized milk," said Graham.

Inuvik's largest grocery store was without fresh milk for about four days, he said. So when a shipment finally came in, dairy shoppers flocked in as well.

"Usually once we get milk in, everybody knows. Word spreads around pretty quickly, so it's usually a mad dash for the day," said Graham.

Nazem Kadri, manager of Midtown Market, said it's very difficult to keep milk in stock.

"There's not much. They go fast," he said. "Do you want me to save you one?"

Kadri said fresh milk is the most difficult product to deal with because of expiry dates.

"And we lose one week on the road. You lose three or four days right there and when they ship it, sometimes it's (only) got two or three days (left) on it," said Kadri.

So when the shipment finally comes in, "Boom! They're gone just like that," he said.

Northwest Transport brings in fresh milk for both Midtown and NorthMart. Northwest's service centre manager, Robin McConville, denies there are any problems with shipping.

"We're not having any problems whatsoever," said McConville.

"As a matter of fact we have trucks leaving on a regular basis from Edmonton. It takes four days to get here and there's milk on board a truck that's supposed to be arriving here tomorrow (Jan. 17). So we're not having problems.

"I think the problems evolve from the people that are ordering the milk," said McConville. "With Northern stores, I know that was a screw-up."

Graham said the milk shortage was caused by a "connection problem" during shipment. He said NorthMart orders milk twice a week.