Food production is "artificially" cheap. There's a middle man taking a big cut, and there's somewhere where the cut is taken. Be it poverty wages for poor immigrant workers or animal welfare, there is no price small enough considered by the powers that be for constant production of cheap food.

I'd take that as a smaller dairy farmer was able to make a living at that time, understanding that maybe people valued milk over the non-existent necessities that we now rely on today. Milk got cheap because it became an industry.