Ceres Chill vs. Mila’s Keeper: Which Portable Breastmilk Cooler is Best

Ceres Chill vs. Mila’s Keeper? Ceres Chill was the first portable breast milk cooler ever created for moms who needed a place to store breastmilk while on the go. Recently, a similar product has been released called Mila’s Keeper.

When you have yet to try the products, deciding which portable breastmilk cooler is best can be challenging. In this Ceres Chill vs. Mila’s Keeper comparison, we will compare 5 categories: ease of use, effectiveness in keeping milk cold, milk capacity, flexibility of use, and price.

We put Ceres Chill and Mila’s Keeper to the test! Read on to find out which portable breastmilk cooler is best for you.

Ceres Chill vs. Mila’s Keeper: Portable Breast Milk Cooler Overview

Our contenders hold breastmilk or formula and can keep milk cold for 20+ hours. They both can be used as a bottle warmer and are portable-no refrigerators necessary!

Ceres Chill was created by Lisa Meyers in 2019, a working mom who needed a better place to store her breastmilk while at work. She aimed to make pumping at work easy without bringing the dreaded ice chest, ice packs, and milk bottles- so many bags! From this, Ceres Chill was born.

Mila’s Keeper was created by Lara Vu in 2022, another working mother who worked on an UNICEF project addressing common breastfeeding issues in the workplace. She noticed many women had no safe place to store their breastmilk at work. All of the breastmilk these women produced was discarded due to poor refrigeration in the workplace.

Both brands are lovely options to keep your breastmilk cold on the go.

Let’s compare Ceres Chill vs. Mila’s Keeper and see the best portable breastmilk cooler.

Ceres Chill vs. Mila’s Keeper Comparison

Ease of Use

Ceres Chill has more parts than Mila’s Keeper, making using it more daunting. Once you get the hang of it, it is easy peasy, but understanding how to use the Ceres Chill at first can be complicated. This portable breast milk cooler uses ice cubes and water in the inner or outer chambers to keep milk cold. Pumping directly into the container isn’t hard, but there is some setup you have to do beforehand. You can pump into the inner chamber, cap, and connecting collar (with an adapter for some breast pumps).

Mila’s Keepers parts are very intuitive-not much guesswork as to what goes where. This portable bottle cooler uses a reusable ice pack in the freezer, so you don’t have to worry about messing with ice cubes and water to cool your chiller like you do with Ceres Chill. That said, I recommend 2 ice packs per Milkeeper, as it is best to freeze each 24 hours before use. Directly pumping into the glass bottles is effortless-just make sure you purchase the correct glass bottle for your pump type.

Effectiveness of Cooling Milk

We filled each container with 12 ounces of body-temperature breastmilk and took temperatures at 4-hour intervals. We found that overall the Ceres Chill did a better job at keeping milk cold for 22 hours when compared to Mila’s Keeper. The coldest milk at all intervals was with the Ceres Chiller, with the inner chamber filled with frozen water.

Capability to Hold Milk

Ceres Chill can hold up to 34 ounces of milk per chiller. Each container has 3 configurations to hold milk: 12 ounces in the inner chamber with ice in the outer chamber, 24 ounces in the outer chamber with ice in the inner chamber, or 34 ounces of already cold or warm milk in the outer chamber without the inner chamber. The capability to hold milk is quite large and is large enough to hold breastmilk during a typical workday without needing more than one chiller. Ceres Chill uses the pooling method which is similar to the pitcher method.

Mila’s Keeper can hold 5 ounces of milk in the glass bottle provided or 2 milk storage bags with 5 ounces in each bag. Although the company does not recommend this, the Milkeeper can hold up to 12 ounces of breastmilk or formula without using the glass bottle. The capability to hold breastmilk is limited with Milkeeper, and if you use the bottle as recommended, you will need 2-3 containers to carry your breastmilk while at work. If you feel most comfortable not pooling your milk Mila’s Keeper is an awesome choice. For breast milk safety guidelines the CDC has lots of information on it.

Flexibility of Use

Ceres Chill is highly flexible to use due to the many parts it comes with. One chiller can hold your breastmilk during an 8-12 hour working day. You can also double pump with one chiller using the inner or outer chamber and the cap.

Mila’s Keeper is very limited in how it is used and how much breastmilk can be held. Although it can hold up to 12 ounces of breastmilk, Mila’s Keeper does not recommend pooling warm breast milk with previously cooled breastmilk. There is no way to double pump with one container. If you want to double pump, you need two containers with two glass bottles.

Price

One Ceres Chiller costs about $68.98 which is outstanding considering for most women you only need one chiller.

One Mila’s Keeper set which includes one Millkeeper container, one reusable ice pack, one cap, and one glass bottle costs about $67.00. I recommend two reusable ice packs per container so you always have one ready after 24 hours of freezing. Each reusable ice pack costs about $7.00. That puts you at around $74.00. If you want to use Milla’s Keeper throughout your work day you will need to purchase 2-3 sets. This costs around $134.00-$195.00.

Ultimately you get more bang for your buck with Ceres Chill.

Conclusion

Ultimately, these two products are a great way to carry breastmilk while on the go safely. Both options are better than lugging around an ice chest, ice packs, milk collection containers, and breast pump bags.

Overall, Ceres Chill is best for women who have long days away from home or produce large quantities of breastmilk. It can hold various amounts of breast milk; one chiller can hold all the breast milk needed during a typical workday. You can use one chiller to double pump into, which is a huge plus when you already carry a pump bag to work daily. In this case, less is more.

Alternatively, Keeper is best for moms who go on short outings like going out to lunch with girlfriends, who don’t produce much breast milk, or those who don’t mind carrying around multiple containers. It is best for those who don’t feel comfortable with the pitcher mother or pooling breastmilk. Mila’s Keeper is nice because it is small, lightweight, and compact. It does not take up much space so it can discreetly fit in a large purse without a problem.