Permeate is a concentrated byproduct from cheese-making that, in diluted form, can be added into fluid milk. You can also get it through ultrafiltration: ultra-filter the milk, then add stuff back in varying proportions depending on the blend you want to achieve. It's relatively high in lactose, so it could make milk less friendly for those with lactose intolerance, but it otherwise seems pretty innocuous. Most supermarket milk in New Zealand uses permeate; it's been a bit controversial in Australia.
You could tell a story about how while supply management keeps prices up, it also avoids the introduction of a lower calibre product. If the product isn't as nutritious or is less safe, and if poorer customers aren't able to make good choices weighing nutritional quality and price, then you could start building a story about supply management being less bad for poor consumers than the standard cartel story would lead us to believe. I still wouldn't much believe the story: banning the practice if it really is unsafe would be a more direct solution than having a dairy cartel. But maybe there's some second-best case.
Except that story really requires that permeate milk be the low-tier product in systems that have both.
Klondyke is the main local brand in Christchurch providing guaranteed permeate-free product. They mostly sell in dairies (small corner stores). And the dairy on my commute home that sells milk for $2.69/2L sells Klondyke. That's $0.94/L Cdn. So the discount brand milk is permeate-free. The main brands sold in the supermarket use permeate. You'd pay a premium in the supermarket for varieties that do not have permeate, but none of them advertise as permeate-free: SilverTop sells for a bit more because cream is expensive; organic milk has the usual organic premium; A2 milk has the small market niche premium.
My read from this is that nobody really here cares about permeate addition to milk. I buy raw unpasteurised milk when it's convenient; I don't much care that there's permeate in the supermarket stuff when we buy supermarket milk. You can't tell a story from New Zealand's mixed market (permeate and non-permeate) about how "Only the rich can afford additive-free milk in a free dairy market": the cheapest stuff is permeate-free and while Klondyke tried pushing permeate-free as a selling point, it didn't lead to anything like the outrage over permeate that picked up in Australia.
Bottom line: while permeate is used in New Zealand, it's awfully hard to go from that to a "supply management helps make sure pure milk is available for everybody and not just the rich" kind of story. And even if that were the thing you worried most about, it isn't hard to just ban the sale of milk that has added permeate - supply management is about the least efficient way of achieving that end, if that's an end you want to achieve.
My read from this is that nobody really here cares about permeate addition to milk. I buy raw unpasteurised milk when it's convenient; I don't much care that there's permeate in the supermarket stuff when we buy supermarket milk. You can't tell a story from New Zealand's mixed market (permeate and non-permeate) about how "Only the rich can afford additive-free milk in a free dairy market": the cheapest stuff is permeate-free and while Klondyke tried pushing permeate-free as a selling point, it didn't lead to anything like the outrage over permeate that picked up in Australia.
Bottom line: while permeate is used in New Zealand, it's awfully hard to go from that to a "supply management helps make sure pure milk is available for everybody and not just the rich" kind of story. And even if that were the thing you worried most about, it isn't hard to just ban the sale of milk that has added permeate - supply management is about the least efficient way of achieving that end, if that's an end you want to achieve.
