In the piece, which follows an interview with Calon Wen Organic Dairy commercial director Richard Arnold, Rebecca says: Manufacturers are now starting to tap into the sleep-inducing properties of milk, which contains the hormone melatonin, which in turn regulates circadian rhythm.
Isn’t there a passage in the Bible: What has been will be again, what has been done will be done again; there is nothing new under the sun.
Rebecca’s posting took my mind back a decade or so. I recall one UK manufacturer who saw the same potential. I remember going to the 2003 Dairy Event in the days when it was held at Stoneleigh Park. During the two-day event, I was invited to attend the Milk Development Council’s presentation of the David Hall Memorial Award. This was an award for innovation within dairy and it was won by Red Kite Farms, an organic farm in the Chiltern Hills.
The dairy had produced Slumber Bedtime Milk – a milk produced at night that was naturally full of melatonin. The melatonin level was high because all mammals, cows included, produce increased levels of this chemical at night.
The milk was available in Waitrose, but after two years Red Kite stopped producing the milk ‘for commercial reasons’.
Whether it has anything to do with the arrival of a competitive brand – Night Time Milk – from St Helens Farm in Yorkshire, I don’t know, but Waitrose switched to sourcing the product from the Yorkshire dairy which, in turn, sourced the milk from a Somerset dairy farm.
I’m not sure how long Night Time Milk continued to be produced. It will be interesting to see how the latest developments shape up.
I do recall one blogger pondering whether he would need to drink Slumber Bedtime Milk to help him sleep. He lived next door to a dairy farm and was worried that the noise from milking machines running very early in the morning would keep him awake!
© FoodBev Media Ltd 2024