Bread and milk are considered by most people to be perishable -- they go bad within a few weeks of purchase.

Non-perishable goods are canned or sealed items that can be kept for years in cool, dark, dry places.

Frozen bread lasts for ~6 months to a 1 year. Which is hardly going to be an issue for most people.

Unopened milk does not last nearly as long. Still, it can last for ~3 weeks at home depending on how it's preserved, how old is was when you got it, and if you keep your fridge cold enough. Which again should be plenty if you actually use milk.

Most people don't freeze bread and I think most people have probably experienced not finishing a carton of milk fast enough or having bread go moldy on them.

Really the trick to bulk buying (besides liberal use of your freezer) is only bulk-buying things you actually use a lot of. I'll buy tomatoes at Costco because I'll eat them but I don't eat nearly enough apples for buying a massive thing of apples to make sense.

In what world does milk "keep fine in storage"?

Fresh whole milk freezes ok, and only takes a few days to thaw out in a fridge. Same with bread, btw.

(To be fair, I think I'm the only person I know who does this)

I've known people to freeze bagels. Apparently they toast more or less equivalently compared to bagels stored above freezing.

Yeah, you can't tell the difference. You can even microwave them for 30 seconds instead of slowly defrosting and if you're toasting you can't really tell the difference.

This is correct. I don't eat enough bread (or bagels) to warrant buying entire loaves at a time, even, and they will grow mold before I can eat them. Freezing them works great for me and prevents mold.

The modern world. Milk no longer goes bad quickly.

I wouldn't call UHT milk common. According to Wikipedia[0], it's less than 10% in Denmark, Greece, Norway, Finland, Sweden, Singapore and the U.K.

It seems the only places where it's "common" are Italy, Turkey, Switzerland, Germany, Czech Republic, Brazil, Portugal, Spain, France, and Belgium.

[0]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ultra-high-temperature_process...

I guess it depends on the definition of "quickly" and also where you live.

In some cities I've lived, the expiration date of milk was often two or three weeks out. In other cities, it was 10 days maximum.

I think it's because dairies (and cows) are not equally plentiful in every part of the country.

One thing I have noticed is that in the places where regular milk expires in 10 days, the organic milk (which one family member drinks) doesn't expire for a month or more.

Sell by dates are basically a fiction. https://www.fsis.usda.gov/wps/portal/fsis/topics/food-safety...

only limitation is: infant formula and false advertising (defined in https://www.law.cornell.edu/cfr/text/9/317.8 )

Sell by dates for eggs and milk vary by state in many cases, for milk I believe Montana has the strictest one (10-12 days after pasteurization) but I've seen references to at least 20 states having their own regulations.

UHT pasteurization

Maybe neither you nor grandparent know about UHT treatment of milk, and how it's common outside America and uncommon inside.

Seems to be at every single grocery store I have ever shopped in for the past at least 5 years.

Not every milk is UHT but every grocery store offers it.

> Not every milk is UHT but every grocery store offers it.

But what about Costco (or other bulk-only sources), which is, really, the whole point of the thread (and original comment)?

Interesting re their return policy, could you expand on that?