thanks! Ill go for that next round.

Can I ask what is the reason for using milk powder rather than fresh milk? Is it just because the powder is imported and therefore considered safer than local milk? Or would those who use milk powder here also use it in their home countries?

@Cloudtrapezer
Price, convenience, shelf life and trust and maybe environmental.

Price:
Example. I use 50% TRIM (Dry Skimmed Milk) costing 6.05 RMB/L and 50% BLUE costing 11.87 RMB/L. Combined 8.96 RMB/L. You stated that you buy 24Hours for 18 RMB/L or something else for 14 RMB/L. So my main ingredient cost 50% or 64% of yours. To complete the calculation: Fat free yogurt will cost you 6 RMB/L. Full cream yoghurt 12 RMB/L. So Full cream is still two third of you cost of 18.

Convenience:
I have to carry only 65 grams of ingredient per litre of milk while a carton of full cream milk weights 1077 gram per litre. That is 16.5 times more or more than 1 kg per litre.
Less volume thus easier to store. And does not need refrigeration.

Shelf life:
Shelf life of power milk is 1.5 years while fresh milk we talk days and need of cold storage. (UHT milk 1 year shelf life and does not need cold storage).

Trust:
Milk is a tricky and fragile substance and many things can potentially go wrong. Lots of milk sold as “fresh” is actually made partially from milk powder.

Environmental:
Trim comes in one plastic (with aluminium coating) bag per 10 litres. The same amount of liquid milk comes in 10 cartons with plastic and aluminium coating. Transport cost and transport related environmental load is lower compared to liquid milks (As stated above liquid milk is 15 times heavier).

Home country question:
No I do not use milk powder there for several reasons. High quality fresh milk and milk products like yoghurt are readily available so I don’t make any yoghurt. Milk powder on the other hand is hardly used (Because of this) and relatively expensive.

PS: Taste wise I cannot distinguish between yoghurt made of fresh milk or made of power milk.
PS2: I am not a Kiwi.

Environmental wise it is good to read these two articles:
www.theguardian.com/[...]
www.theguardian.com/[...]

@Cloudtrapezer.

Happy to see that you are now enlightened but for the rest your reaction is too simplistic.

-Not everybody lives fifty metres from a store selling milk.
-For some people nine kwai is a lot.
-They don’t fly in milk powder.
-I never pointed out that you contributed to global warming. The point reflects to the difference in environmental cost between liquid imported milk and powdered imported milk. For local milk this is a different question.
PS: since you mentioned it: Fresh milk has a relatively large energy use. These because it has to be kept cool in transport, in the store and by the end user. Wastage of perishable products is relatively high as well.
PS2: I live in walking distance of a Carrefour. (Hardly ever buy something there).

YOGURTMAN! :)