By Jamie Bradburn

Source: Lake Ontario Tall Ships Rendezvous ’84

“A Celebration of Friends” was the theme for Toronto’s 150th anniversary festivities in 1984. Where better to meet your neighbourhood friends than the corner milk store, as the fine folks in today’s ad are doing? One could have offered a toast to the city with a glass of milk from a freshly opened jug or debated the finer points of city politics over a carton of orange-flavoured Jungle Joose.
Becker’s Milk opened its first five stores in Metropolitan Toronto in May 1957. The following decade saw rapid expansion, partly propelled by the opening of its main milk processing plant on Warden Avenue near St. Clair in mid-1963. When the plant opened there were fifty-three stores scattered across Metro—by the end of the decade there were more than 200. The chain was purchased by Silcorp (operator of the Mac’s convenience store chain) in 1996, which was subsequently purchased by Alimentation Couche-Tard three years later. Though the brand has been phased out, a few stores bearing the flowery logo still dot the landscape.