Lunches are provided at schools about 180 days a year in Japan. Shipments of milk for school lunches account for approximately 10 percent of total milk production in the country. The problem is elementary and junior-high school children tend to drink less milk at home on days when there’s no school lunch, prompting concerns about calcium deficiencies and other nutritional issues among children. This challenge is compounded by other major unresolved issues, such as the impact of soaring post-pandemic prices on milk consumption and dairy farming businesses.

The calcium intake of elementary and junior-high school children on non-school-lunch days is reportedly 200 to 470 mg below the recommended daily calcium intake. Calcium deficiencies at this level can lead to diseases such as osteoporosis and menstrual irregularities.

To address these problems, we launched the Weekend-Milk Splash campaign with the tag line “Let’s drink milk at home on days when there’s no school lunch.”

We designed and implemented more than 20 concurrent projects—such as Weekend-Milk Splash Recipes, Weekend-Milk Splash Camps, Weekly Weekend-Milk Manga [a serialized comic], Weekend-Milk Splash Ad Creator [a classroom program], and a Weekend-Milk Splash Festival—all able to be rolled into the Weekend-Milk Splash program simply by adding the catchphrase “Weekend-Milk Splash.” As a result of these activities, the Weekend-Milk Splash phrase is becoming engrained among many different sectors, especially in the dairy farming and dairy production industries.

We also developed visuals for the campaign with a blue and red motif to represent non-school days on calendars. Children can easily understand the visuals, which helped promote making milk a habit.

As a result of the initiative, more than 25 percent of households that use school lunches were aware of the Weekend-Milk Splash campaign, and of these households, more than 45 percent of guardians said they were more intentional, compared to the previous year, about having their children drink milk on non-school days.^* Many parents, when surveyed, viewed the campaign positively, saying they want their children to drink milk on days they don’t go to school. Milk cartons designed in collaboration with the Weekend-Milk Splash campaign also appeared on store shelves in some regions.

* 2023 Survey on Dietary Trends of Milk and Dairy Products