In Australia, fresh milk usually takes 3 to 5 days to go from farm to store, but this timeframe can vary based on factors like distance and transport logistics.

In Australia, it usually takes about 3 to 5 days for fresh milk to get from the farm to store shelves. Cows are milked once or twice a day, then the milk is quickly cooled and picked up by refrigerated trucks within 48 hours. It’s taken to a processor, where it is laboratory tested, pasteurised, homogenised and packaged, then sent out to shops – often within a day or two.

The timing can be a bit longer in more remote parts of the country. In places like regional Western Australia or the Northern Territory, milk might have to travel a lot further. In these areas, you’ll often find longer-life milk like UHT as well. How quickly milk arrives really depends on how close farms are to factories and stores, and how easy it is to transport it.