International Journal of Liberal Arts and Social Science Vol. 2 No. 2 March, 2014 1 ‘There is Absolutely NO SUBSTITUTE for Fresh Milk’: Dairy Marketing in Australia, Twentieth Century Virginia Thorley Honorary Research Fellow School of History, Philosophy, Religion and Classics The University of Queensland, QLD 4072 Australia Email: v.thorley@uq.edu.au Dr Thorley is the sole author of this paper and has no conflicts of interest to declare. Abstract This article discusses marketing of dairy products in twentieth-century Australia with the focus on liquid cow’s milk or products that could be reconstituted with the addition of water to make cow’s milk for domestic use. The marketing of other processed products of dairy origin, namely, butter, cream and manufactured infant-feeding products (“formula”), will not be covered here. Early in the century when municipal health officials had very real concerns about the cleanliness of dairies and the safety of water supplies for households, public health officials began to regulate dairies. Marketing addressed the concerns of consumers about safety, even decades into the century, and affordability and convenience increasingly developed as strong selling points; underlying all was the concept of cow’s milk as a “complete” food. By at least the 1960s the industry was seeking out opinion leaders to reach its key markets of children and pregnant or breastfeeding women. Key words: dairy products, marketing, Australia, twentieth century 1. Introduction Despite the lack of mandatory tuberculin testing of dairy herds in Britain, and other safety issues in both Britain and Australia in the early twentieth century, the dairy industry paradoxically positioned itself as an altruistic provider of good health to children, infants, and pregnant and breastfeeding women. A separate article has discussed in more detail the risk of the transmission of bovine tuberculosis to humans via the milk of infected cows, the progressive implementation of tuberculin testing (“TB testing”) of dairy herds in Australia, and the culling of cows that tested positive. This article describes the messages underlying dairy