W o r l d ' s DairyI W S l y CHEESE REPORTER 31, 2017 Section 1.pdf · with organizations that...

Small-Scale Artisan Cheese Makers Navigate Pitfalls In Getting Products To Market

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Since 1876

CHEESE REPORTER

UK Notifies EU Of Plans to Leave; Ireland’s Dairy Industry Concerned

Vol. 141, No. 41 • Friday, March 31, 2017 • Madison, Wisconsin

“The triggering of Article 50 provides us with a definitive time-frame for the UK to exit the EU and the clock is ticking. We hope this means we can move swiftly from the realm of speculation into one where real issues are being resolved,” said Ian Wright, direc-tor general of the UK’s Food and Drink Federation (FDF).

“FDF on behalf of manufactur-ers, alongside our partners across the food chain, will work tirelessly to help government to secure the best possible outcomes on future trade, access to the right work-force, regulation and ensuring a seamless border with the Republic of Ireland,” Wright added.

Earlier this week, the FDF, Brit-ish Retail Consortium (BRC) and National Farmers Union of Eng-land and Wales (NFU) issued a joint statement to government officials highlighting core objec-tives and priorities for UK trade policy.

They called on the UK govern-ment to adopt an approach that will ensure stability and continuity for agri-food and drink businesses

• See Brexit And Dairy, p. 39

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Vermont Creamery Acquired By Land O’Lakes; LOL Brings Resources, Expertise To Spur More GrowthWebsterville, VT, and Arden Hills, MN—Bob Reese and Allison Hooper, co-founders of Vermont Creamery, and Chris Policinski, president and CEO of Land O’Lakes, Inc., on Wednesday announced that their businesses have joined forces.

Vermont Creamery, which was known as Vermont Butter & Cheese Creamery until several years ago, will become an indepen-dently operated subsidiary of Land O’Lakes, and will continue to pro-duce its award-winning fresh and aged goat cheeses, cultured butter and fresh dairy at the creamery in Websterville, VT. Terms of the transaction will not be disclosed.

• See Vermont Creamery, p. 16

Madison—Patience and persis-tence when selecting a distribu-tor, creating a return policy for damaged products, and the poli-tics of overlapping distributors are among the many hurdles cheese makers need to overcome when bringing a product to market.

In a special webinar hosted by the American Cheese Society (ACS) Wednesday, cheese mak-ers discussed how smaller produc-ers – particularly those without a sales team and limited product – can successfully navigate work-ing with distributors, packing and shipping, connecting with end customers, and common pitfalls.

Panelists included Keith Adams of Wm. Cofield Chee-semakers, Sebastopol, CA and Alemar Cheese, Mankato, MN; Sarah Hoffmann of Green Dirt Farm, Weston, MO; and Jodi

Ohlsen Read of Shepherd’s Way Farms, Nerstrand, MN.

One of the initial steps is find-ing the right distributor. Ohlsen Read said Shepherd’s Way Farms recruited its first distributor on the basis that the owner was an acquaintance and former cheese monger.

“That was an obvious choice,” she said. “Later, when one of my cheeses won an award at ACS, that was our first introduction to the national distribution world. They came to us first.”

“Otherwise, we talk and look around and see who’s represent-ing cheeses that might be in the same family – not necessarily spe-cific competitors, but who’s rep-resenting similar artisan cheese, and look at what they’re doing,”

•See Cheese To Market, p. 8

House, Senate Bills Aim To Bring Additional Transparency, Accountability To Commodity CheckoffsWashington—Bipartisan leg-islation introduced in both the US Senate and House this week aims to bring more transparency and accountability to commodity checkoff programs.

The Opportunities for Fairness in Farming Act of 2017 (OFF Act) was introduced in the Senate by US Sens. Mike Lee (R-UT) and Cory Booker (D-NJ) and in the House by US Reps. Dave Brat (R-VA) and Dina Titus (D-NV).

Under the legislation, the term “checkoff program” means a pro-gram to promote and provide research and information for a particular agricultural commod-ity without reference to specific producers or brands, including a program carried out under, among other laws, Subtitle B of the Dairy Production Stabilization Act of 1983 (which established the dairy farmer-funded National Dairy Pro-motion and Research Board) and the Fluid Milk Promotion Act of 1990 (which established the pro-cessor-funded Fluid Milk Processor Promotion Program).

According to the legislation, although the laws establishing checkoff programs broadly prohibit the use of funds in any manner for the purpose of influencing legisla-tion or government action, check-off programs “have repeatedly been shown to use funds to influence policy directly or by partnering with organizations that lobby.”

• See Checkoff Reforms, p. 33

Cheddar Exports From Ireland To UK Already Down From Last YearBrussels, Belgium—British Prime Minister Theresa May on Wednes-day officially notified the European Council of the United Kingdom’s intention to leave the European Union (EU).

This notification follows a ref-erendum held in June 2016 and starts the withdrawal process under Article 50 of the Treaty on Euro-pean Union, which sets out the procedure for a member country to withdraw from the EU.

For the EU, the first step will now be the adoption of guidelines for the negotiations by the Euro-pean Council. These guidelines will set out the overall positions and principles in light of which the EU, represented by the European Commission, will negotiate with the UK. The negotiations them-selves are expected to last approxi-mately 18 months, from early June 2017 through October/November 2018.

The talks that are about to start between the UK and EU “will be

difficult, complex and sometimes even confrontational,” European Council President Donald Tusk said today.

The UK remains a full mem-ber of the EU and all the rights and obligations of EU membership remain in force until exit. The UK government will continue to nego-tiate, implement and apply EU law during this period.

The work on Brexit is a priority for the European Dairy Associa-tion (EDA).

“The UK dairy sector is an inter-linked part of the EU dairy chain,” the EDA noted in its “EDA Dairy Flash” newsletter. “It is vital that the dairy sector continues to work on a single market/free trade basis on both sides for UK and EU milk and dairy products.

“We hope that the European Union and the UK will apply the virtues of fairness, transparency and pragmatism as guiding prin-ciples when discussing the future dairy relationship between the European Union and the UK with the clear objective to limit any potential negative impact on our sector,” the EDA added.

Cheese Contest Booklet Inside

CHEESE REPORTER March 31, 2017

Cheese Reporter Publishing Co. Inc. © 2017

2810 Crossroads Drive, Suite 3000Madison, WI 53718-7972

(608) 246-8430 • Fax (608) 246-8431http://www.cheesereporter.com

DICK GROVES

Publisher/Editore-mail: [email protected]

608-316-3791MOIRA CROWLEY

Specialty Cheese Editore-mail: [email protected]

608-316-3793

KEVIN THOME

Advertising & Marketing Directore-mail: [email protected]

608-316-3792

BETTY MERKES

Classifieds/Circulation Managere-mail: [email protected]

608-316-3790

REGULAR CONTRIBUTORS:Bob Cropp, Neville McNaughton,

Dan Strongin, John UmhoeferYou can e-mail our contributors at: [email protected]

The Cheese Reporter is the official publication of the following associations:

California Cheese & Butter AssociationLisa Waters,

1011 Pebble Beach Dr, Clayton, CA 94517

Central Wisconsin Cheesemakers’ and Buttermakers’ Association

Janice Norwood [email protected]

Cheese Importers Association of America 204 E St. NE, Washington, DC 20002

Eastern Wisconsin Cheesemakers’ and Buttermakers’ Association

Barb Henning, Henning’s Cheese21812 Ucker Road, Kiel, WI 53042

International Dairy-Deli-Bakery Association636 Science Drive, Madison, WI 53711

Missouri Butter & Cheese InstituteTerry S. Long, 19107 Factory Creek Road,

Jamestown, MO 65046

Nebraska Cheese AssociationEd Price, Fremont, NE 68025

New York State Cheese Manufacturer’s Assn Kathyrn Boor, 11 Stocking Hall,

Cornell University, Ithaca, NY 14853

North Central Cheese Industries AssnLloyd Metzger, SDSU, Box 2104,

Brookings, SD 57007

North Dakota Cheese Makers’ AssnChuck Knetter, Medina, ND 58467

Ohio Swiss Cheese AssociationDarlene Miller, P.O. Box 445,

Sugar Creek, OH 44681

South Dakota State Dairy AssociationHoward Bonnemann, SDSU, Box 2104,

Brookings, SD 57007

Southwestern Wisconsin Cheese Makers’ Association

Myron Olson, Chalet Cheese Coop, N4858 Cty Hwy N, Monroe, WI 53566

Wisconsin Association for Food ProtectionBob Wills

PO Box 620705, Middleton WI 53562

Wisconsin Cheese Makers’ AssociationJohn Umhoefer, 8030 Excelsior Drive,

Suite 305, Madison, WI 53717

Wisconsin Dairy Products AssociationBrad Legreid, 8383 Greenway Blvd.,

Middleton, WI 53562

CHEESE REPORTER (Publication Number: ISSN 0009-2142). Published weekly by Cheese Reporter Publishing Co. Inc., 2810 Crossroads Drive, Suite 3000, Madison, WI 53718-7972; Phone: (608) 246-8430; Fax: (608) 246-8431. Subscriptions: $140.00 per year in USA; Canada and Mexico: $195.00 per year; other foreign subscribers, please write for rates. Advertising and Editorial material are copyrighted material. Any use without publisher’s consent is prohibited. Cheese Reporter does not endorse the products of any advertiser or any editorial material. POSTMASTER: If undeliverable, Form 35579 requested. Periodicals postage paid at Madison, WI. Address all correspondence to: Cheese Reporter, 2810 Crossroads Drive, Suite 3000, Madison, WI 53718-7972

there’s an ongoing federal order issue that prompts us once again to call for a thorough review, and then reform, of federal orders. That issue concerns Class I milk, or more spe-cifically, declining Class I use and rising overall milk production.

Past Issues Read this week’s issue or past issues of Cheese Reporter on your mobile phone or tablet by scanning this QR code.

The Federal Order Class I Conundrum

D I C K G R O V E S

Publisher / EditorCheese Reportere: [email protected]: @cheesereporter

EDITORIAL COMMENT

As with any federal program that dates back to the 1930s, there are plenty of problems here in the 21st century with the federal milk mar-keting order program.

We’ll cite just a couple pieces of evidence that those problems exist. First, the 2008 farm bill called for the establishment of a Federal Milk Marketing Order Review Commission, which was supposed to conduct a comprehen-sive review and evaluation of the federal order system and consider legislative and regulatory options for, among other things, simplify-ing the federal order system, and evaluating whether that system serves the interests of dairy pro-ducers, processors and consumers.

Establishment of that commis-sion was subject to the availability of funding, which never happened. Thus, the commission was never formed.

What was formed, in 2009, was USDA’s Dairy Industry Advisory Committee. In its final report, the DIAC recommended, among other things, that the secretary of agricul-ture appoint a committee to review the implications of federal orders, including, but not limited to, end-product pricing’s impact on milk price volatility and the impact of classified pricing and pooling on processing investment, competi-tion and dairy product innovation. Again, that committee was never appointed.

Those general recommenda-tions aside, there’s an ongoing federal order issue that prompts us once again to call for a thorough review, and then reform, of federal orders. That issue concerns Class I milk, or more specifically, declin-ing Class I use and rising overall milk production.

There are a couple of recent examples of what these two trends mean for federal orders, and they concern the two largest federal orders (in terms of pooled milk). The first concerns the Upper Midwest order where, starting on April 1, shipping requirements are reduced from 10 percent to

7.5 percent, with a corresponding increase in the diversion limits from 90 percent to 92.5 percent.

These adjustments were requested in late December 2016 by two separate organizations: the Upper Midwest Marketing Agency and the Central Milk Producers Cooperative.

In their nearly identical requests, the UMMA and CMPC cited the same factors: declining Class I utilization percentage, declining monthly Class I receipts, declin-ing number of distributing plants, declining fluid milk sales, rising monthly total milk production, and the burden of depooling.

This all sounds kind of famil-iar, and there’s a simple reason why. Back in June 2016, a pool handler in the Northeast federal order, Queensboro Farm Products, requested that the order’s shipping requirements for the months of September, October and Novem-ber be lowered from 20 percent to 10 percent.

In its petition, Queensboro cited, among other things, declin-ing Class I sales, rising milk pro-duction, and declining pool distributing plant numbers. And as Erik Rasmussen, Northeast market administrator, pointed out last summer, 2016 marked the fourth consecutive year in which a handler has requested to reduce the shipping percentages for the months of September, October, and November.

Just to put this Class I issue in some historical perspective, back in 1999 (the year in which USDA issued its final rule reforming fed-eral orders; that rule became effec-tive January 1, 2000), total receipts of producer milk in all federal orders was 104.5 billion pounds, 45.2 billion pounds of which, or 43.3 percent, was used as Class I.

Last year, receipts of producer milk in all federal orders totaled 133.8 billion pounds, 41.1 billion pounds of which, or 30.7 percent, was used as Class I. The numbers are pretty clear: Class I sales are declining, the Class I utilization

percentage is declining, and milk production is increasing.

The Upper Midwest and Northeast orders are the two larg-est federal orders; last year, they accounted for almost 45 percent of all milk pooled on federal orders.

Since 2000, when these orders were formed, the amount of milk used in Class I has fallen from 4.1 billion pounds to 3.4 billion pounds on the Upper Midwest order and from 10.5 billion pounds to 8.8 billion pounds on the Northeast order.

This issue is simply not going to go away for the dairy industry. But don’t just take our word for it. Here’s how Dean Foods put it in a letter opposing the UMMA and CMPC request to reduce shipping percentages on the Upper Midwest order:

“Given the trends, it is clear that the change that the Cooperatives are requesting would merely be a short-term fix to a long-term issue. Adjust-ing the shipping percentage to 7.5% may allow for more milk to be pooled on the order today. The long-term erosion in fluid milk demand — a trend that is very unlikely to change — coupled the milk production trends in Federal Order 30, a 2.5% reduc-tion in the shipping percentage will not solve the issue. While it is not a trend we as a fluid milk company like to see, fluid milk consumption will likely con-tinue to decline in the years ahead. By not addressing the root cause of this issue which is the decline in fluid milk consumption, we will continue to face this exact issue in the years ahead.”

Dean Foods also stated that, at some point, the dairy indus-try “must stop focusing in on the short-term issues and must address the long-term structural issues fac-ing the US dairy industry. Dean feels strongly that that day is cer-tainly now.”

Class I milk continues to decline in importance in federal orders, and that decline will become more pronounced if California approves its federal order. Sooner or later, the dairy industry will have to deal more permanently with this issue.

CHEESE REPORTERMarch 31, 2017

For more information, circle #1 on the Reader Response Card on p. 54

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More Cheddar Converted To Cracker Cuts & Shreds As Flavor, Convenience In DemandMadison—A larger percentage of aged Cheddar is being converted to slices, snack sizes and shred-ded blends as consumer demand requires greater convenience with more robust flavor.

Joe Widmer, Master Chee-semaker and owner of Widmer’s Cheese Cellars, Theresa, WI, started selling two-year-old Ched-dar in his retail store back in the early 1980s.

“People loved it and came back asking for more,” Widmer said. “I decided if people really like old Cheddar, they’d probably like it even more if it was older, so I started aging it out to four- and six-years old.” Now he ages it all the way up to 12 years.

“To age Cheddar out, you have to have a relationship with a banker who understands the need for a line of credit and that every time you put another batch of cheese aside, the price of milk and labor expense to make the cheese is money you have tied up until you sell it,” Widmer said.

“We have our Old School Cheddar, which is aged five years and

the aficionados enjoy it, but it is only available in limited quantities. Not every batch of

cheese is going to age out for that long, and it’s a small portion of

our inventory.”

—Nate Formalarie, Cabot Creamery

Cheddars aged two to five years are probably the most highly in demand at the retail level, he said. They already have a sharp Ched-dar flavor profile, but don’t have the cost of an eight-, 10- or 12-year Cheddar.

Convenience is also certainly a trend we are seeing, specifically in the area of cracker cuts and Cheddar slices, said Nate Forma-larie, communications manager for Cabot Creamery Cooperative, Montpelier, VT.

“People are busy and those pre-cut items make snacking and host-ing that much easier,” Formalarie said.

The cracker cut segment is up 25 percent for the latest 52 weeks ending Feb. 18, 2017 in total US All Outlets Combined.

“This trend led Cabot to make some investments around those items,” Formalarie said. “In the last year, we have brought in equip-ment to allow Cabot to package

on sandwiches and in restaurant entrees,” Dietsche said.

The application of sharp Cheddar as an ingredient in pre-pared foods and snacks has also increased, he said. And of course, everyone enjoys a nice cold pack or cheese spread crafted with nine to 12-month old Cheddar.

At the wholesale level, demand for and sale of extra sharp and vin-tage Cheddar blocks is steady and growing, Dietsche reported.

“Oshkosh has seen truckload sales of extra sharp Cheddar in the past. However, pallet quantity orders of combined ages is more common and is very good repeat business,” he said.

The cheese industry is also experiencing the resurrection of traditional bandaged Cheddars, as seen with the number of entries in

the recent United States Champi-onship Cheese Contest.

“Another trend we have seen is the increased demand for white sharp Cheddar aged two years or more,” Dietsche said. Not too many years ago – especially in the Midwest – if an inventory of super sharp white 40-pound blocks or 640s was on the floor, it would take a long time and a lot of effort to move it.

Cheddar Made Outside Wisconsin“In my opinion, the best Ched-dar in the US is produced by Wis-consin’s talented and traditionally experienced cheese makers,” Wid-mer said.

A lot of Cheddar is made out-side of Wisconsin, with some of it

• See Cheddar Usage, p. 6

cracker cuts and Cheddar slices in-house. Those new packages are launching right now.”

It’s an exciting addition that will allow us to increase Cheddar sales in the convenience segment, he continued.

Flavor is just as important as con-venience, however. For both slices and shreds at retail and foodser-vice levels, there is a trend to offer consumers more flavor, according to Stan Dietsche, vice president of sales and procurement, Oshkosh Cheese Sales & Cold Storage.

“As a result, an increase in sharp Cheddar blends and sharp Cheddar slices are showing up on the hooks in the dairy section,


from our archives

50 YEARS AGOMarch 31, 1967: Des Moines, IA—Judge Roy Stephenson placed a 10-day restraining order on members of the National Farm-ers Organization here this week at a hearing on the US Justice Department’s antitrust suit filed to force the farmer group to stop coercing others to support its milk price activities.

Washington—Dairy produc-tion standards and standards now developed for cheeses are expected to be among the first published in the Codex Alimentarius. Some standards for dairy products have already been accepted by both the US and other countries.

25 YEARS AGOMarch 27, 1992: Madison—The Wisconsin budget bill that was headed for final legislative approval this week included an amendment dealing with bovine somatotropin, but did not include a controversial phosphorus discharge limit. WCMA had opposed the bill, which would have set a blanket discharge limit of one mg/L of phosphorus discharged into sur-face waters.

Ithaca, NY—A new Cornell University study looks at the impact of manufacturing costs and profits of using milk frac-tionation and concentration processes in Cheddar cheese plants. The study is fifth in a series of publications on Ched-dar manufacturing costs, and is authored by Cornell’s Rich-ard Aplin, David Barbano, and Susan Hurst.

10 YEARS AGOMarch 30, 2007: Newark, NJ—Two former executives of the new defunct cheese com-pany Suprema Specialties, Inc., were convicted this week by a federal jury of conspiracy, bank fraud, mail fraud, wire fraud and making false statements to the US SEC.

Madison—The cost and labor involved in producing traditional hooped Cheddar has caused many cheese companies to aban-don the process, despite con-sumer appreciation and demand for specialty bandaged and waxed daisies, midgets or gems. Only and handful of US companies continue to make specialty-cut Cheddar, and most in limited production.

There is a huge ruckus about fake news in the media and online these days. Each side blames the other for using it. Neither side seems to care much about their own. The search for objective truth, long the hallmark of western civilization, has devolved into the pursuit of news that proves my opinion right. In the science of discourse called Rhetoric, referred to as a logical fallacy in service of the ancient art of the foregone conclusion.

When we in the cheese indus-try see headlines proclaiming fat is bad, our dander is up. But we have no problem at all sharing articles that “prove” cheese increases our reproductive potential, cures heart attacks and prolongs life, without even reading the article or exam-ining critically the research it is based on.

The Difference between Opinion,and Validated OpinionOpinions are emotional interpreta-tions of apparent facts. We like a fact, it is true. We don’t; it isn’t. But opinions can be wrong, utterly so! What used to separate us from the folks in the dark ages was the realization that opinions are a dime a dozen.

What turns an opinion into something useful is testing it. If your opinion accurately predicts what will happen, every time, it is validated. It is real. It is knowledge you can use, something you can

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plant your flag in. Not everything in life can be validated. Part of liv-ing is learning to live with uncer-tainty. The one thing everyone who likes cheese can agree upon is it can be delicious.

The Challenge of MarketingIn the 1300s, the King of Aqui-taine, (aka Burgundy, before there was a France), decreed that only wines made in Burgundy could be sold as “Burgundy.” It seems every-one from Africa to Never-Never Land were calling their red wine burgundy. In my day it was blue point oysters, even though it was forbidden to fish them for decades due to pollution. Every restaurant had so-called Blue Point Oysters.

In our desire to sell more, we marketers overstep the bounds of truth and common sense. When we hawk our goods as if we were selling snake oil in a carnival, don’t you think consumers perceive it, eroding their trust?

If you want to go out and vali-date whether or not eating cheese increases your potency, good luck with that. As food people, aren’t we better served by marketing based on what William Faulkner called “the old verities and truths of the heart, the old universal truths lack-ing which any story is ephemeral and doomed - love and honor and pity and pride and compassion and sacrifice,” and flavor?

The Real Moos: FlavorLife is not a dubious demographic study. We lose using fake moos. But we win on taste, especially

C h e e s e m a r k e t i n g P r a c t i c e

Fake Moos

Dan StronginASQ CMQ/OEUncorporate Consultant

if our products have some. At the dawn of Western Civilization Hip-pocrates, the father of modern medicine, laid it down as clear as a bell: (transcribed into hip Eng-lish), he advised we eat a variety of foods and not more than we need, and shake our booties with regular-ity. A simple universal truth and the pleasure of sharing food with friends. Who doesn’t smile think-ing of it?

The fixation on proving a single food is good or bad is silly, but, in marketing, it can be fatal. Com-merce in food should be based on trust. Food is the most intimate of things we sell, truly, the oldest pro-fession. People welcome our prod-ucts into their families and feed them to their children, and each other, and they are dependent on food to live.

What the Green Grocer KnewIn my childhood, every neighbor-hood had a Green Grocer. She was that guy or gal who let you pay on Friday for the food you bought today. The one who always winked at the kids, and gave a slice of apple. You could trust him.

Then, one day, a marketing executive read some stuff about cholesterol and entered into a panic. “We have to let people know our oils contain no choles-terol or we will lose our business,” he thought. So he put a statement on their label: Contains no Cho-lesterol.

What is the problem? Since Creation vegetable oils contain no cholesterol. Only foods from ani-mal sources do. When people fig-ured this out, they felt misled, the first in a long line of bogus health claims that rapidly deteriorated the bond of trust between the public and those of us who supply their

• See Strongin, p. 5



StronginContinued from p. 4

their food. I do not drink a cold drink on a hot day because it sup-ports my immune system. I do not even know what that means. I am thirsty, it is cold, and it tastes good!

Trust is the most powerful tool in marketing. It builds loyal cus-tomers, the most lucrative of all, because they come back and seek out your products over and over again, and convince others to try it as well. But it is like a glass key, turn it too hard in the lock, and it breaks. (thank you, Dashiell Ham-mett.)

If we sell on fear, opinion, or the promise of magic pill nutri-tion, we risk breaking the glass key. But selling on flavor, enjoyment, enrichment, and the plea. DS

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US Regulatory Agencies Need To Prepare For Greater Quantity, Range Of Biotech ProductsThe Number of New Products Has Potential To Overwhelm AgenciesWashington— A profusion of bio-technology products is expected over the next five to 10 years, and the number and diversity of new products has the potential to overwhelm the US regulatory sys-tem, according to a recent report from the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medi-cine.

The US Environmental Pro-tection Agency (EPA), the Food and Drug Administration (FDA), the US Department of Agricul-ture (USDA), and other agencies involved in regulating biotechnol-ogy products should increase their scientific capabilities, tools, and expertise in key areas of expected growth, said the committee that conducted the study and wrote the report.

The United States biotechnol-ogy economy is growing rapidly, with the scale, scope, and com-plexity of products increasing.

More types of organisms will likely be engineered, the report noted, and the kinds of traits intro-duced with biotechnology will also increase.

Some future biotechnology products are likely to use genome-editing techniques such as CRISPR for familiar applications, such as modifying agricultural crops, the study reported.

Other future products are expected to be entirely new — plants that can serve as sentinels of environmental contamina-tion, for example, and collec-tions of microorganisms that can produce chemical compounds efficiently.

Engineered microbes, plants, and insects designed to live in the environment with little or no human management are likely to be more common. With few exceptions, products such as these have not yet been evaluated by the current regulatory system, the report said.

Current staffing levels, exper-tise, and resources available at Environmental Protection Agency, FDA, US Department of Agriculture and other agencies may not be sufficient to address the expected scope and scale of future biotechnology products, the study reported.

It is critical that the agencies involved in regulation develop and maintain scientific capabilities, tools, and expertise in key evolv-ing areas.

Examples of such areas include understanding relationships between intended genetic changes and an organism’s observable

traits, the unintended effects of genetic changes on target and non-target organisms, predicting and monitoring ecosystem responses, and quantifying the economic and social costs and benefits of bio-technologies.

To respond to the expected increase and diversity of products, the agencies should develop risk-analysis approaches tailored to the familiarity of products and the complexity of their uses, the report said.

For biotechnology products that are similar to products already in use, established risk-analysis meth-ods can be applied or modified, and a more expedited process could be used.

For products that have less-familiar characteristics or more complex risk pathways, new risk-analysis methods may need to be developed.

Regulatory agencies should build their capacity to rapidly determine the type of risk-analysis approaches most appropriate for new products entering the regulatory system, the study reported.

The Food and Drug Adminis-tration, Environmental Protection Agency and the US Department of Agriculture should identify products that could serve as pilot projects to develop new approaches to assess risks and benefits and to inform regulatory decisions, the report said.

Pilot projects could also be used by the agencies to evaluate future products as they move from labora-tory scale, to field- or prototype-scale, to full-scale operation, the study reported.

One challenge regulators will face is finding jurisdiction under existing statutes to regulate the diverse range of anticipated bio-tech products, the report said.

The current collection of stat-utes and regulations that provide the basis for agencies’ oversight, known as the Coordinated Frame-work for Regulation of Biotechnol-ogy, appears to have considerable flexibility to cover a wide range of biotechnology products, the study reported, but in some cases the agencies’ jurisdiction has been defined in ways that could leave gaps or overlaps in regulatory over-sight.

At times, Food and Drug Administration, Environmen-tal Protection Agency, and the USDA may need to make use of the flexibility under their statutes to minimize gaps in jurisdiction, the report said.

Even when statutes do allow agencies to regulate products, the current statutes may not ade-quately equip regulators with the tools to regulate the products effec-tively, the committee said.

For example, the statutes may not empower regulators to require product sponsors to share in the burden of generating information about product safety, and may place the burden of proof on regu-lators to demonstrate that a prod-uct is unsafe before they can take action to protect the public.

This implies that adequate fed-eral support for research will be crucial to protect consumer and occupational safety and the envi-ronment.

Biotech products on the horizon are likely to generate substantial public debate, the report notes. Many members of society have concerns over the safety and ethics of various biotechnologies, while others see prospects for biotech-nology addressing social or envi-ronmental problems.



Cheddar UsageContinued from p. 3

destined for a mild to medium-plus application, Dietsche agreed.

“What is also happening over the years is an increase in Ched-dar made outside the Dairy State that ages very well and is enjoyed by consumers across the board,” he continued.

As a cooperative of New Eng-land and New York farmers, we are quite focused on making sure our 1,100 family farms have a home for their milk and ensuring the highest quality cheese and dairy products are made from that milk, Cabot’s Formalarie said.

“Wisconsin is obviously a big cheese state, but we don’t have much insight there,” he contin-ued. “We can say Vermont and New York Cheddar sales are grow-ing steadily along the Eastern Sea-board.”

In the last year there has been quite a bit of press about a ‘cheese glut’ in the US, Formalarie said.

“Much of this is slightly over-blown as much of that cheese is in storage aging. We can’t comment on other companies, but from where Cabot sits we are happy with our inventory levels of our naturally aging cheeses,” he said.

Currently, there’s an adequate inventory of aged Cheddar to sat-isfy demand for high-end shreds and slices, Dietsche added. At the wholesale level, Oshkosh Cheese alone is storing about 10 loads of seven- to eight-year colored Ched-dar.

The price of fresh or current Cheddar is still based on the mar-ket, plus some kind of premium, and margins can be slim, he said.

“With the vintage Cheddar, there’s a better return to reap,” he said. “But you still need to leave room in your sell cost for every-one in the supply chain to make a profit.”

Formalarie said the volatility in the market is part of the reason why Cabot is making investments in its creameries to make them more efficient and process more milk.

“The price of milk is hurting our farm families. We work to bring as much of their milk as possible into our creameries so we can turn it value-added Cheddar and dairy products,” he said.

The benefit to the farms in our co-op is that at the end of the year, Cabot returns all profits from Cheddar sales to the farms, he con-tinued.

Over the past few years, people

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seem to be willing to pay a higher price for aged artisan Cheddar, Widmer said.

However, because older Ched-dars are still more costly, demand for less aged commodity Cheddar remains greater, he added.

“Also, more and more cheese makers are aging out Cheddars, and this makes the Cheddar more available to high-end retailers,” he said.

What Makes A Great Cheddar?As people continue down the path of Cheddar and are exposed to older Cheddars, their palates soon crave the five-year Cheddar, For-malarie said.

“We have our Old School Cheddar, which is aged five years and the aficionados enjoy it, but it is only available in limited quanti-ties. Not every batch of cheese is going to age out for that long, and it’s a small portion of our inven-tory,” he said.

We find somewhere between 10 and 18 months to be the most pop-ular amongst your average Ched-dar consumer.

Cabot Seriously Sharp is aged that long and is our best seller, For-malarie said.

According to Dietsche, most sought after Cheddar remains to be five-year colored Cheddar and white Cheddar. However, requests for six-year and older is on the rise.

“And though it’s not usually a large order, it does become the plus sale and is appreciated,” he con-tinued.

It All Starts On The FarmHigh quality Cheddar starts with high quality milk, Formalarie stressed. Our farmers work hard

to deliver the highest quality milk and our employees in turn take great care in turning that milk into award-winning Cheddar.

“To age Cheddar out, you have to

have a relationship with a banker who

understands the need for a line of credit and that every time you put another batch of cheese aside, the price of milk and labor expense to make the cheese is

money you have tied up until you sell it.

—Joe Widmer, Widmer’s Cheese Cellars

“Each step of the process is a delicate balance of art and sci-ence,” he said. “A lot of care goes into our products, but at the end of the day, you can’t make quality cheese if you don’t start with qual-ity milk.”

We believe that there is no ‘ideal’ Cheddar profile, so our goal in the end is to have a cheese that is free of defects and show-cases a near perfect example of the extra sharp style of Cheddar which has yielded Cabot every major award for taste, Formalarie continued.

Using old-fashioned techniques and recipes is the key to making a great aged Artisan Cheddar, Wid-mer concluded.

Colleagues Celebrate The Retirements Of Leetz And Voermans From Kraft/Heinz

Green Bay, WI—With the announcement of their retirement from Kraft/Heinz, fellow co-workers throughout the 38 and 37 years of Donna Leetz and Jeff Voermans, respectively, gathered at Lambeau Field to honor their cheese industry colleagues. Leetz began with Kraft in 1980. Her career with Kraft started in whey management. From there she acquired responsibilities focused on planning how much bulk cheese of every type, Kraft needed to keep cheese conversion lines running at multiple Kraft plants and Kraft co-manufacturers. Voermans began his career at Kraft in Green Bay in 1979. The Kraft cheese procurement team was headquartered in Green Bay. The procurement team was supported by a “Cheese Production Technology” team, which of which Voermans was a member. This team worked with cheese suppliers to make the cheeses that Kraft desired.In the first row, from left to right are: Divya Reddy, John Scott, Dwight Krampien, Jeff Hal-let. In the middle row, from left to right are: Donna Leetz, Steve Ludy, Debbie Stanke, Mary Deneys. In the back row, from left to right are: Kirk Baldwin, Mike McCully, Marv Kovac, Jeff Voermans, Dan Huntley, Dave Volesky


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Cheese To Market(Continued from p. 1)

Ohlsen Read said.It’s also important to talk with

other cheese makers and see if they’re happy with their distribu-tors, she said. If so, you can request a meeting and take it from there.

We found the Meet the Chee-semaker event at the ACS confer-ences has been an invaluable way for us to meet distributors, Hoff-mann added.

“The cost of me doing the work that a distributor would do would be equal to the amount I would spend by using a distributor.”

—Jodi Ohlsen Read, Shepherd’s Way Farms

“It’s sort of a courtship in a way,” Adams said. “You cannot will a distributor to work with you. They literally have to decide they want to sell your cheese, and there’s no amount of convincing.”

“You can give them all the information about pricing and tell them what you’re willing to do for them, but in the end, they have to make that decision,” he said.

Except for one instance where I cold-called a distributor and they said “yes” right away, it’s been an ongoing process of building up a relationship and having them commit to carrying your products, Adams said.

“We’ve had good results, and I would advise patience and persis-tence,” he continued.

It really is about the relation-ship, Ohlsen Read said. It’s not something you can force.

Regarding the expenditure of employing a distributor, Ohlsen Read said the move is cost-effec-tive.

“The cost of me doing the work that a distributor would do would be equal to the amount I would spend by using a distributor,” Ohlsen Read said.

As a rule of thumb, using a dis-tributor typically means a 15 to 20 percent mark-up from what we’re selling the cheese for, Adams said. A $10 piece of cheese would be sold at distribution for $11.50-$12.50.

If distributors are coming to you with a refrigerated truck, how cheese is packaged isn’t really an issue, Adams said.

“You basically have to put it in boxes that will keep the cheese safe,” he said. “That’s the easiest way of getting our cheese from point A to point B.”

If you’re shipping though UPS or FedEx, then you have to fig-ure out if you’re going to purchase pre-made Styrofoam containers or make something up yourself, Adams said.

For distributors, many want a consistent box and case size for cheese, Ohlsen Read added. Spe-cific case size can go into a distrib-utor’s database and can help with tracking.

“A lot of them will also need to know the number of pieces in a case, what is the size, and what’s the outreach price range,” she said.

Some distributors also require universal product codes (UPC).

“We only put UPCs on cheeses that are going to a distributor that requires them, because it’s an extra

step and more work,” Hoffmann said.

“We also have some distributors who require case UPCs, so again – more work and we only do it if the distributor requires it. We’re set up for UPCs for all of our cheeses – individual UPCs as well as case UPCs,” Hoffmann said.

Right now, we’re not using any UPCs, Adams said. Whoever we’ve been working with has done it themselves. However, if there’s incentive to do it, we will.

Devising A Return Policy For Damaged CheeseIf cheese makers have a distributor that’s taking product far from their manufacturing facility, companies may often have to deal with prod-ucts that don’t arrive in optimum condition and need to devise a return policy.

“We don’t have a lot of prob-lems with that, even though we’re sending soft-ripened cheese across the country,” Adams said. “We’ve had pretty good luck.”

In a case where something might have gone wrong, we tend to err on the side of crediting right off the bat, Adams said. If it becomes a persistent thing, we have to do something else.

“For the most part, if it’s a bad outcome, we’ll eat it a time or two,” he said.

Shepherd’s Way has a similar approach. In the beginning, one of our cheeses was very soft and we had to change the way we pack-aged it, Ohlsen Read said. The boxes we were using simply didn’t protect the cheese enough.

Once it didn’t arrive a couple of times in proper shape, that was a key to us that we had to make a change in our packaging, she said.

“It’s not common for cheese to arrive damaged, especially when using a distributor,” Ohlsen Read said. “If something does happen, the customer is always right. You take it back, and go forward from there.”

Green Dirt Farm also tries to investigate what happened as much as possible – why the failure and damage to the cheese, Hoff-mann said. We also ask the cus-tomer to send us the lot number of the cheese, and take pictures if possible if it arrived in the shipping container damaged.

“Those are all really help-ful when investigating so we can quickly correct the problem and move forward, Hoffman said.

Politics of Overlapping Distributors In Same RegionThe politics of overlapping dis-tributors can be tricky. Shepherd’s Way initially never wanted to have more than one distributor in one region because it didn’t seem fair, Ohlsen Read said.

“There are times...when we’d get written

up or win an award and we’d think the phone

would start ringing and never stop. That is not the case. You have to go out and earn the

business, you have to make cheese, you have to tell the story, and

you have to keep at it every day.”

—Keith Adams Wm. Cofield Cheesemakers

“Sometimes, distributors get purchased by other distributors or they expand and the distribu-tor that once had one region may suddenly be overlapping another distributor’s region,” she said.

We have some arrangements where they have exclusives – particularly in our home region, she said. In other places, I think some of our distributors are very understanding that those regions sometimes shift and suddenly they overlap.

“It’s a careful dance,” she con-tinued.

Green Dirt operates in much the same way, in the sense that initially, when we first establish a relationship with the distributor, we try really hard to make sure that there’s not overlapping sales, Hoff-mann said.

“It’s not always possible, and sometimes it happens inadver-

• See Cheese To Market, p. 20For more information, circle #6 on the Reader Response Card on p. 54


Expansion, Just Two Years After Plant Opened, Will Increase Filling Capacity, Expand Product VarietiesVerona, VA—Shamrock Farms this week announced the expan-sion of its milk processing facility in Verona (Augusta county), VA.

The expansion, which is expected to be completed by late 2018, comes just two years after the facility opened its doors and will more than double its produc-tion capacity.

The plant expansion will sig-nificantly increase filling capac-ity and expand product varieties, sizes and formats, Shamrock Farms said. Among the technology addi-tions is the ability to produce shelf-stable products using convenient plastic single-serve bottles, which the company said makes it one of only a handful of dairy brands in the US with the capability.

“As a company we’re always looking for ways to grow and inno-vate,” said Ann Ocana, chief mar-keting officer at Shamrock Farms. “The expansion gives us the capac-ity and the technology to meet growing demand, expand our offer-ings and propel milk-based bever-ages into the future.”

Shamrock Farms’ products are available in more than 50,000 quick service restaurants and 36,000 grocery and convenience stores across the US. The exist-

ing product portfolio includes the Shamrock Farms ready-to-drink mmmmilk line and Rockin’ Refuel protein beverages.

Also, the company recently launched Cold Brew Coffee and Milk, capitalizing on the rapid growth of the ready-to-drink cof-fee category.

Shamrock Farms is invest-ing more than $40 million into the project, and will receive a $400,000 performance-based grant from the Virginia Investment Part-nership (VIP) program, along with a $400,000 grant from the Gov-ernor’s Agriculture and Forestry Industries Development (AFID) Fund, administered by the Vir-ginia Department of Agriculture and Consumer Services.

The expansion will cre-ate more than 70 new jobs in Augusta county, and once com-pleted Shamrock Farms will employ more than 120 people at that location.

“We’re thrilled to be expand-ing just two years after opening our doors in Virginia,” Ocana said. “We’re poised for further growth and product innovation, and are thankful for our employees and the support we’ve received from the community and the Common-wealth.”

“Shamrock Farms has become an incredible asset to the agriculture economy in the Shenandoah Val-ley,” said Basil Gooden, Virginia’s agriculture secretary. “Shamrock’s

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continued investment in Virginia, and commitment to quadruple the amount of milk purchased from Virginia farmers, is evidence of the company’s intent to be a long-term corporate citizen and partner in agriculture.”

“Virginia has established itself as a leader in the food and bever-age sector, and Shamrock Farms’ rapid growth in just two years in the Shenandoah Valley is a testa-ment to Virginia’s business advan-tages and dominant standing in this thriving industry,” said Vir-ginia Gov. Terry McAuliffe.

“Since 2007, food and bever-age companies have announced plans to invest more than $2.25 billion and create 7,500 new jobs in Virginia,” said Todd Haymore, Virginia’s secretary of commerce and trade.

“Shamrock Farms is a corner-stone in Mill Place Commerce Park and a strong asset to the agri-cultural community of the Com-monwealth,” said Tracy Pyles, chairman of the Augusta County Board of Supervisors. “As exclu-sive purchasers of milk through the Maryland/Virginia Milk Produc-ers Cooperative, Shamrock Farms supports our dairy farmers and provides high-tech manufacturing jobs to our citizens.”

Shamrock Farms, which has facilities in both Arizona and Vir-ginia, is a division of Shamrock Foods Company, a family-owned and -operated business founded in 1922 in Tucson, AZ.

For more information, visit www.shamrockfarms.net.

Americold Breaks Ground On Expansion Of Clearfield, UT, SiteAtlanta, GA—Americold has offi-cially broken ground in Clearfield, UT, to expand its site there.

The project will add 6.5 million cubic feet of temperature-con-trolled warehouse space to Ameri-cold’s current 11.2 million cubic foot facility on the site.

Americold’s new building will feature ammonia-free, self-con-tained, refrigeration units with no engine room requirement. The system offers significant energy efficiency gains, zero water usage, and is air-cooled, the company said.

“We are excited to be able to provide the additional capacity in Salt Lake City that our customers have requested. The new build-ing should be operational in time for our peak volumes during the fourth quarter of 2017,” said Fred Boehler, Americold’s president and CEO.

Americold is a global leader in temperature-controlled warehous-ing and logistics to the food indus-try.

Based in Atlanta, GA, Ameri-cold owns and operates over 165 temperature-controlled ware-houses, with more than 1 billion cubic feet of storage, in the US, Australia, New Zealand, China, Argentina and Canada. Americold serves more than 2,500 custom-ers and employs 11,000 associates worldwide.


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Canada Should Use Supply Management For Dairy As Bargaining Chip In New NAFTA TalksMontreal, Quebec—With the US on the verge of reopening the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA), Canada should seize this opportunity to open its dairy and other agricultural markets, and in return ask for full access to US markets for its softwood lumber, according to an “Economic Note” published recently by the Montreal Economic Institute (MEI).

Supply management will “in all likelihood” be at the heart of the next trade negotiations between the US and Canada, the note pre-dicted.

A US government document points out, among other things, the grievances of US producers with regard to this system, which governs the marketing of dairy, eggs and poultry by establishing production quotas and import tar-iffs, and by fixing prices.

Tariffs in particular are a source of friction, as they triple or quadru-ple the price of certain commodi-ties, thereby closing the Canadian market to US producers for all practical purposes, the note said.

“Canadian farmers also lose under supply management, since it deprives them of access to billions of consumers around the world, which means that they have not been able to benefit from increased

global food consumption over the past decade,” the note stated.

When it comes to milk, Can-ada’s current production level is comparable to what it was in the 1960s, the note pointed out. Demand for dairy products in developing countries is expected to grow over the coming years, but supply management will prevent Canadian producers from benefit-ing from this growth.

Further, the funds required to purchase quotas limits the ability of farmers to invest in their facili-ties and equipment to increase the productivity of their farms, accord-ing to the note. For example, a British Columbian dairy farmer has to pay $43,000 (US$32,470) just to acquire the right to produce and sell what corresponds to the production of approximately one cow, even before owning a single animal.

In Quebec, where the price of quotas is fixed at $24,000 (US$18,123), these production permits represent 42 percent of the value of the average dairy farm, the note said.

“Supply management, by con-tributing to underinvestment in farms, thus traps producers in a vicious cycle,” the note stated. “Paradoxically, the low produc-

tivity of certain farms is used to justify the maintenance of this sys-tem, whereas it is itself responsible for the situation. Yet larger farms would allow Canadian producers to be more productive and more competitive on local and global markets.”

Because the prices of prod-ucts under supply management are determined by the costs of production, the low productivity of small farms also increases the retail price of these foods, the note said. Although direct subsidies for Canadian producers were abol-ished in the early 2000s, keeping prices artificially high represents an indirect subsidy for producers. It is therefore Canadian consumers who “subsidize” these farmers.

The abolition of Canadian dairy quotas should be conditional on the elimination of US subsidies, the note said.

A US producer receives the equivalent of 7.46 cents for each liter of milk produced, which rep-resented 15 percent of total gross revenue in 2015.

According to the note, the US Department of Commerce is cur-rently evaluating the possibility of imposing tariffs on Canadian soft-wood lumber imports that could go as high as 25 percent. Under the last softwood lumber deal, which was in effect from 2006 to 2015, a tax was applied to Canadian soft-wood lumber when its price fell below a certain level.

US farmers’ access to Canadian sectors under supply management would open up for them a market with revenues for production and processing that total over $36 bil-lion (US$27 billion), two-thirds of which comes from the dairy sector.

One study estimates that the complete, immediate abolition, with no financial compensation, of supply management would put

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40 percent of Canadian dairy pro-duction at risk, which could cause the disappearance of from 4,500 to 5,000 farms. This is due to the much smaller size of Canadian farms, which entails relatively higher operating costs than in the US.

“Such a scenario is excessively pessimistic since a period of tran-sition, including financial com-pensation for the value of quotas, would allow dairy producers to increase the size of their farms and thus reduce their operating costs,” the note said.

Certain farmers could indeed decide to cease their activities after having received compensation, the note continued.

The prospect for growth, how-ever, will be more favorable for those who remain.

The liberalization of the dairy industry would thus lead to an increase in Canadian production of from 75 percent to 150 percent over a period of 10 years.

This change would also benefit the processing sector, by provid-ing it with less expensive inputs and making Canadian products more competitive on the global market.

In all, liberalization could create over 8,500 jobs in the dairy pro-duction and processing sectors, the note said.

The example of New Zealand speaks volumes: that country nearly tripled its production after having liberalized its dairy indus-try, becoming the biggest dairy exporter in the world.

“It is therefore entirely plau-sible that, following the opening up of the Canadian dairy market, American producers could meet a portion of Canadian demand with-out leading to a reduction in total Canadian production,” the note said.

“Trade barriers have never made more than a small minority of people richer, at the expense of the vast majority,” the note said. “Eliminating those that persist in the agricultural sectors under sup-ply management and in the soft-wood lumber sector, and making sure not to erect new ones, would be good both for consumers and for producers.”

“Trade between Canada and the United States having stagnated since the early 2000s, eliminating supply management and softwood lumber tariffs would be a good way of breathing new life into the eco-nomic partnership,” commented Alexandre Moreau, public policy analyst at the MEI and author of the note.

“Putting supply management on the table would be a good negotiat-ing tactic that could convince the American government to drop the idea of imposing tariffs on Cana-dian softwood lumber,” Moreau continued.


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Report Outlines Actions US Government Can Take To Hike Donations Of Safe Surplus FoodActions Include Allowing Sale Or Donation Of Foods After Quality Date, Standard Date Labels, Tax IncentivesCambridge, MA—A report released earlier this month by the Harvard Law School Food Law and Policy Clinic (FLPC) and the National Resources Defense Coun-cil (NRDC) presents actions the US government can take to better align federal laws and policies with the objective of increasing dona-tion of safe surplus food to address the dual issues of food waste and food insecurity facing the US.

For example, if an entire manu-facturing run of yogurt has a mis-print with the wrong number of ounces on it, currently a company would not benefit from the liabil-ity protections or tax incentives meant to encourage food donation unless every container is relabeled, the FLPC and NRDC noted. These types of hurdles do nothing to pro-tect consumers and everything to discourage food donations.

The report, Don’t Waste, Donate: Enhancing Food Donations Through Federal Policy offers 16 actionable recommendations span-ning five key areas of federal policy that the FLPC and NRDC said can go a long way toward promoting food donation and helping the fed-eral government meet its goal of a 50-percent reduction in food waste by 2030.

The report recommends the fol-lowing policy changes to enhance food donation:

Enhance liability protections for food donations. The Bill Emerson Good Samaritan Food Donation Act provides a federal baseline of civil and criminal lia-bility protections for food donors and the nonprofits that receive and redistribute those donations. The protections afforded by the Emer-son Act are significant and have enabled many food donations, but numerous existing and prospective donors remain unaware of these protections. Further, several provi-sions in the Emerson Act should be broadened to better align with the current food recovery landscape.

Recommendations include: Congress should delegate an

executive agency to be in charge of implementing and interpreting the Emerson Act. Congress should amend the

Emerson Act to provide liability protection to nonprofit organiza-tions that either give food away for free or charge a reduced fee. The Emerson Act should be

amended so that foods must only comply with (or be reconditioned to comply with) federal, state and local safety standards or safety-related labeling standards.

farms, in lieu of the enhanced deduction. Federal tax incentives should

be strengthened by adding a deduc-tion or credit to cover the cost of transporting donated food. Congress should foster the

development of innovative, sus-tainable food recovery models by repealing the “no-charge” provi-sion that prevents the enhanced deduction from being claimed if donated food is “transferred by the donee in exchange for money, other property, or services.” Congress should amend

the enhanced deduction to only require compliance with safety standards and safety-related label-ing Food, Drug, and Cosmetic Act requirements.

Standardize and clarify expi-ration date labels. There is no federal system regulating the “sell by,” “best by,” “use by” and other date labels used on food. Instead, each state decides whether and how to regulate date labels, lead-ing to a patchwork of inconsistent regulations.

Manufacturers have broad dis-cretion on how the dates on foods

• See Food Donations, p. 14

The Emerson Act should explicitly provide liability protec-tion for the donation of past-date food.

Improve federal tax incen-tives for food donations. Federal tax incentives exist to encourage food donations. Food donors are eligible for either a general deduc-tion (deducting the basis value of the charitable contribution) or an enhanced deduction (substantially higher than the general deduc-tion) for qualified food donations.

The enhanced tax deduction was modified and permanently expanded in December 2015 to apply to all businesses that donate food, so long as the donation meets certain criteria. The 2015 changes took a significant step to incentiv-ize donations, but there are addi-tional ways to further improve the federal tax incentives available for food donations.

The report recommends: Federal tax incentives should

be expanded to include an alterna-tive tax credit that can be used by low-margin businesses, like many

siggi’s Launches New Triple Cream Yogurt In Three Popular FlavorsNew York—Icelandic-style yogurt manufacturer siggi’s has just rolled out its new Triple Cream yogurt line in Raspberry, Vanilla and Lemon flavors.

siggi’s Triple Cream yogurt is packaged in a 4-ounce cup and contain 9 percent milkfat. Made with whole milk and pasteurized cream, the yogurt also features 9 grams of protein and 8 grams of sugar per serving.

“In creating this new line of yogurts, we were inspired by a simple dessert my mom used to make when I was a kid that mixed together yogurt, whipped cream and fruit,” said siggi’s founder Siggi Hilmarsson.

“We wanted to offer our fans this wholesome snack which com-bines indulgence and satiety at the same time,” Hilmarsson said. “

siggi’s Triple Cream yogurt debuted at select retailers nation-wide last month, with greater dis-tribution starting in July. For more information, visit www.siggisdairy.com.



Per Capita US Milk Production Increased 1.1% In 2016, But Declined In A Majority Of StatesLenexa, KS—Per capita milk pro-duction in the US last year was 657.4 pounds, up 7.4 pounds, or 1.1 percent, from 2015, according to the Central federal milk market-ing order’s February 2017 Market-ing Service Bulletin.

Per capita milk production is a data series presented annually in the Bulletin. A comparison of per capita milk production to per cap-ita consumption data may reflect the aggregate supply and demand balance for individual states and regions throughout the US.

A map included in the Bulletin depicts per capita milk production by state for 2016. The 300 and 600 pound levels for per capita pro-duction selected for the map are arbitrary divisions; the 600-pound level roughly approximates annual per capita consumption of all dairy products on a milk equivalent basis, while the 300-pound level reflects average annual consump-tion of Class I and Class II products (fluid and soft manufactured prod-ucts), plus reserve requirements.

In 2016, 23 states reported annual per capita production increases, with South Dakota (up 7.0 percent) posting the larg-est gain. Three other states had a per capita milk production increase greater than 5 percent last year: Michigan, up 5.9 per-cent; Nebrasks, up 6.3 percent; and Maine, up 5.9 percent.

Arkansas recorded the largest per capita production decline in 2016, with per capita output down 13.7 percent from 2015.

Eight additional states recorded per capita production declines of 5 percent or more last year compared with 2015, including: Utah, down 7.5 percent; Tennessee, down 7

percent; South Carolina, down 5.4 percent; Mississippi, down 12.7 percent; Louisiana, down 10.4 per-cent; Alabama, down 9.1 percent; and Rhode Island, down 11.9 per-cent.

Per Capita Changes Since 2011US per capita milk production increased by 28.0 pounds, or 4.4 percent, between 2011 and 2016.

Some 26 states recorded increases in per capita milk pro-duction between 2011 and 2016, led by South Dakota’s 29.5 percent gain.

Another 12 states increased per capita production by 10 percent or more comparing 2016 with 2011, including Wisconsin, up 14.2 per-cent; Iowa, up 13.2 percent; Kan-sas, up 27.1 percent; Michigan, up 27.6 percent; New York, up 13.7 percent; Nebraska, up 15.2 per-cent; Colorado, up 20.9 percent; Indiana, up 14.8 percent; Wyo-ming, up 10.1 percent; Georgia, up 20.1 percent; Connecticut, up 13.4 percent; and Hawaii, up 22.6 percent.

Alaska recorded the largest per capita production decrease between 2011 and 2016, at 50.6 percent. Six additional states posted declines of more than 20 percent, including: Oklahoma, down 27.6 percent; Mississippi, down 29.6 percent; Louisiana, down 28.8 percent; Arkansas, down 45.3 percent; Alabama, down 37.4 percent; and Rhode Island, down 28.9 percent.

Another four states reported per capita production declines between 10 percent and 20 percent between 2011 and 2016, includ-ing Tennessee, down 17.4 percent; West Virginia, down 13 percent; South Carolina, down 15.6 per-

cent; and New Jersey, down 11.1 percent.

ProductionLeadersA total of 19 states had per capita milk pro-duction above 600 pounds last year, unchanged from 2015.

Idaho last year once again ranked first in per capita produc-tion, at 8,712.9 pounds, up 2 percent from 2015 and 4.1 percent higher than in 2011, when US per capita produc-tion totaled 629.4 pounds.

Wisconsin again ranked second in per capita milk production last year, at 5,212.8 pounds, up 3.6 per-cent from 2015 and 14.2 percent higher than in 2011. Ranking third was Vermont, at 4,361.2 pounds, up 2.4 percent from 2015 and 7.7 percent higher than in 2011.

Two additional states had 2016 per capita milk production of over 2,000 pounds: New Mexico, at 3,705.4 pounds, down 1.6 percent from 2015 and 5.8 percent lower than in 2011; and South Dakota, at 2,941.8 pounds, up 7 percent from 2015 and 29.5 percent higher than in 2011.

Another five states had per capita milk production above 1,000 pounds in 2016: Minnesota, 1,751.1 pounds, up 1.5 percent from 2015 and 5.4 percent higher than in 2011; Iowa, 1,605.9 pounds, up 3.6 percent from 2015 and 13.2 percent higher than in 2011; Kan-sas, 1,145.1 pounds, up 4.8 percent from 2015 and 27.1 percent higher than in 2011; Michigan, 1,095.5 pounds, up 5.9 percent from 2015 and 27.6 percent higher than in

2011; and California, 1,031.1 pounds, down 1.7 percent from 2015 and 6.3 percent lower than in 2011.

The other nine states with per capita milk production above 600 pounds last year were: Washington, 912.5 pounds, down 1.1 percent from 2015 but up 0.9 percent from 2011; Pennsylvania, 846.4 pounds, up 0.2 percent from 2015 and up 2.3 percent from 2011; New York, 747.8 million pounds, up 4.8 per-cent from 2015 and 13.7 percent higher than in 2011; Nebraska, 733.6 pounds, up 6.3 percent from 2015 and up 15.2 percent from 2011; Colorado, 708.1 pounds, up 2.7 percent from 2015 and 20.9 per-cent higher than in 2011; Arizona, 690.8 pounds, down 0.5 percent from 2015 but 1.3 percent higher than in 2011; Utah, 686.6 million pounds, down 7.5 percent from 2015 but 4.3 percent higher than in 2011; Oregon, 633.4 pounds, down 0.1 percent from 2015 and down 1.2 percent from 2011; and Indiana, 625.8 pounds, up 2.8 per-cent from 2015 and 14.8 percent higher than in 2011.

Nine of the 19 states with per capita milk production above 600 pounds last year are also among the top 10 states in total milk pro-duction. Per capita production in Texas, which ranked sixth nation-ally in milk production last year, was 386.6 pounds, up 3 percent from 2015 and 3.5 percent higher than in 2011.

Three states had per capita milk production above 300 pounds last year: Ohio, 476.3 pounds, up 0.6 percent from 2015 and up 6.9 percent from 2011; Maine, 473.2 pounds, up 5.9 percent from 2015 and up 5.1 percent from 2011; and North Dakota, 455.2 pounds, up 3.8 percent from 2015 but down 9.6 percent from 2011.

At the other end of the spec-trum are 12 states with 2016 per capita production under 100 pounds: North Carolina, 95.1 pounds; West Virginia, 73.2 pounds; South Carolina, 50.4 pounds; Mississippi, 48.2 pounds; Louisiana, 36.1 pounds; Massachu-setts, 31.6 pounds; Arkansas, 26.4 pounds; Hawaii, 24.4 pounds; Ala-bama, 18.9 pounds; New Jersey, 13.6 pounds; Rhode Island, 13.3 pounds; and Alaska, 4.7 pounds.

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Meyer Cheese, Mercer Cheese Take Top Spots In NZ Champions Of Cheese EventAuckland, NZ—Meyer Gouda Cheese, Ltd. of Hamilton, New Zealand, earned the Countdown Champion of Champions Cheese Award for commercial entries at the 14th annual New Zealand Champions of Cheese Awards here recently.

Top honors for artisan cheese went to Mercer Cheese of Mercer, New Zealand, winning the Puhoi Valley Champion of Champions Cheese Award for its Fifty-Fifty – a half cow’s milk, half sheep’s milk Gouda.

Catherine Oakley of Winsam Farm, Okaihau, New Zealand, took home the Milk Test NZ Cham-pion Cheesemaker Award for her sheep’s milk Just Ewe entry.

A popular Kiwi Blue cheese also took top honors in several catego-ries. Kapiti Kikorangi from Fon-terra Brands NZ won the Ecolab Champion Blue Cheese Award, the Renco New Zealand Export Award and Fonterra Champion Original Cheese Award.

This year’s contest, hosted by the New Zealand Specialist Cheese Association, drew more than 350 entries across 23 catego-ries. More than two tons of cheese was judged last weekend, and the winners were announced Monday.

The judging panel included Cathy Strange, cheese buyer for Whole Foods Market; cookbook author and international food styl-ist Clare Ferguson, and Craig Gile, cheese grader for Cabot Coopera-tive Creamery, Cabot, VT.

Entries were evaluated in pairs by a technical judge and an aes-thetic judge. The Gold medal win-ners are judged by the entire panel a second time to determine Best

of Show for both artisan and com-mercial producers.

In recent years, Dutch style cheese makers have dominated the Gold and Supreme awards, accord-ing to Smith. This year has seen a surge in Italian-style cheeses and flavor-added cheeses, along with new cheese makers and industry members introducing their cheese, yogurt and butter.

“The millennials are very active with food exploration,” Strange said. “They know a lot of flavors, and they’re very educated around food.”

Other category winners include:Innovative Packaging Cham-

pion Butter Award: NZMP Clan-deboye, Unsalted Butter

Epic Beer Champion Yogurt Award: Clevedon Valley Buffalo, Buffalo Vanilla Bean Yogurt

Green Valley Dairies Cham-pion Fresh Unripened Cheese Award: Massimo’s Italian Cheeses, Mozzarella Log

Kiwi Labels Champion Feta Cheese Award: Puhoi Valley Cheese, Puhoi Valley Feta

CHR Hansen Champion Soft White Rind Cheese Award: Grin-ning Gecko Cheese Co., Grinning Gecko Brie

180 degrees Champion Goat Cheese Award: Meyer Gouda Cheese, Meyer Goat Milk Gouda

NZ Chefs Association Cham-pion Sheep Award: Winsam Farm, Just Ewe Winsam Farmhouse

Thermaflo Champion Washed Rind Cheese Award: Puhoi Val-ley Cheese, Cellar Range Washed Rind

Ecolab Champion Blue Cheese Award: Fonterra Brands NZ, Kapiti Kikorangi

Eurofins NZ Champion Euro-pean Style Award: Barrys Bay Traditional Cheese, Barrys Bay Havarti

AsureQuality Champion Dutch Style Award: Meyer Gouda Cheese, Meyer Fenugreek

Ministry for Primary Indus-tries Champion New Cheese Award: Meyer Gouda Cheese, Smoked Goat Gouda

Mad Millie Aspiring Cheese-maker Award: Grinning Gecko Cheese Co., Zev Kaka-Holtz –

Fonterra Co-operative Group Champion Original Cheese Award: Fonterra Brands NZ, Kapiti Kikorangi

Brancott Estate Wines Cham-pion Flavored Cheese Award: Meyer Gouda Cheese, Meyer Smoked Gouda

Tetra Pak Champion Cheddar Cheese Award: Fonterra Brands NZ, Mainland Tasty Cheddar

Renco New Zealand Champion Export Cheese Award: Fonterra Brands NZ, Kapiti Kikorangi

New World Champion Peo-ple’s Choice Cheese Award: Fon-terra Brands NZ, Kapiti Kahurangi Creamy Blue

Caspak Champion Cheese Packaging Award: Barrys Bay Traditional Cheese, Barrys Bay 3 Cheese Selection

Curds & Whey Champion Home Crafted Cheese & Chee-semaker: Sandra Crone, By The Whey, Mozzarella.


Guy Metals Acquired By Ryerson Holding Corp.Chicago—Ryerson Holding Cor-poration, a distributor and value-added processor of industrial metals, recently announced that it has acquired Guy Metals, Inc., a privately owned metal service center company located in Ham-mond, WI.

Guy Metals processes stain-less and nickel alloy products, including its trademarked “Pit Free Dairy” and “Super4” finishes used in dairy, food, beverage and pharmaceutical applications. Guy Metals employs 70 people and has annual revenue of approximately $35 million.

“Guy Metals has built a hard-earned and well-deserved reputa-tion as an innovator in stainless steel processing and finishing,” said Eddie Lehner, Ryerson’s president and chief executive officer.

“Guy Metals is an outstanding company known for top quality products and innovative finishes for the stainless steel industry that complement Ryerson’s extensive offering,” said Mike Burbach, Ryerson’s president, North-West Region.

Founded in 1842, Ryerson has operations in the US, Canada, Mexico and China.

For more information, visit www.ryerson.com.


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Food DonationsContinued from p. 11

are selected, and these dates typi-cally reflect quality and taste rather than safety. Yet businesses, indi-viduals and even state regulators frequently misunderstand the dates and interpret them to be indicators of safety.

Some states even restrict or for-bid the sale or donation of past-date foods. These inconsistent and misguided state laws lead to whole-some foods unnecessarily being dis-carded rather than donated.

Recommendations in this area include: Congress should establish

standard label language that dis-

tinguishes between quality-based and safety-based labels, and edu-cate consumers on the meaning of the new date labels. Food manu-facturers should have two options for date labeling: a “best if used by” date that is optional for indi-cating quality and a “use by” date required for food items that FDA and USDA find to have a food safety concern over time. Allow for the sale or donation

of foods after the quality date. As part of the creation of a distinction between quality and safety dates, Congress should pass legislation or FDA and USDA should collabo-rate to bar states from preventing the donation or sale of food that is past its quality date. Only the sale

and donation of past-date foods bearing the “use by” safety date should be allowed to be restricted.

Better monitor and encour-age food donation by federal agencies. The Federal Food Donation Act of 2008 encour-ages federal agencies that have contracts for food services or sale, food provision, or for use of fed-eral property by private parties for events where food is provided, to donate excess food to nonprofits that distribute or serve to food-insecure people.

This law requires that language encouraging the contractor to donate excess food, when possible, be added to such contracts. How-ever, while they are encouraged to

donate surplus food, federal agen-cies and their contractors are not required to make these donations. Further, they are not required to keep track of or report any dona-tions they make, rendering it nearly impossible to assess vendors’ performance or the broader impact of this act.

Recommendations include: The Food Donation Act of

2008 should be amended to include a requirement that agencies and their contractors track and report on the amount of food donated. The Food Donation Act of

2008 should be amended to require covered contracts to include lan-guage mandating that agency con-tractors take steps to donate excess food by creating a written agree-ment with a recovery organization.

Publish food safety guidance for food donations. Lack of clar-ity and consistency surrounding the food safety requirements for donated food poses a frequent bar-rier to donation. The FDA Food Code, a model food safety code cre-ated by FDA and outside experts, has been adopted in some form by all 50 states but does not include language specifically related to food safety for food donations.

This contributes to the absence of regulatory language specific to food donations in most state and local food safety regulations, and inconsistent regulatory language in those locales that do have relevant regulations. This deters food dona-tions, as food donors are not able to find guidance regarding safety requirements for food donations, or are subject to regulations that vary greatly from one jurisdiction to another, posing a particular chal-lenge to businesses that operate in multiple jurisdictions.

The federal government does produce a separate resource for food recovery programs, known as the Comprehensive Resource for Food Recovery Programs, which contains valuable information about how to safely and effectively implement a food recovery pro-gram. However, this resource is not included in the FDA Food Code and is not widely disseminated, so most food donors, state regulators, and state and local health inspec-tors do not know of its existence.

Recommendations in this area include: Include modernized and clar-

ified guidance on food donations informed by food recovery orga-nizations and donors operating at different scales and contexts in the FDA Food Code. FDA and the Conference

for Food Protection should work to distribute the Comprehensive Resource so that it reaches a wider audience. The Comprehensive Resource

should be updated every four years to reflect current food safety prac-tices, data, language, and trends.


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NZ Launches New Trade Strategy; Dairy Group Sees Benefits Of Removing Trade BarriersWellington, New Zealand—New Zealand Prime Minister Bill Eng-lish late last week launched New Zealand’s updated trade strategy, Trade Agenda 2030, and reiterated the New Zealand government’s commitment to free trade.

English has also announced the government’s ambitious goal of having free trade agreements cover 90 percent of New Zealand’s goods exports by 2030, up from 53 per-cent today.

New Zealand exports of goods and services have increased from $29 billion in 1995 to $70 billion in 2016. Within goods, dairy has increased from 16 percent of total goods exports in 1995 to 25 per-cent in 2016.

To overcome the enduring chal-lenges of New Zealand’s distance from other markets, small scale and an export profile that is especially vulnerable to protectionism, the new trade agenda said the coun-try’s trade policy needs to, among other things: Secure access to foreign mar-

kets: tariffs and other measures often restrict or prevent New Zea-land exporters of goods and ser-vices and investors from accessing overseas markets. New Zealand wants to open up markets through eliminating or reducing such barri-ers.

Among New Zealand’s key export sectors, dairy is the most impacted by tariffs, with New Zea-land exporters still facing hefty tariffs offshore. In key markets such as Algeria, Venezuela and Sri Lanka, where New Zealand has no free trade agreements (FTA) in place, average applied tariffs on dairy products range from 18.8 per-cent in Venezuela to 22.7 percent in Algeria and 30 percent in Sri Lanka. Level the playing field: subsi-

dies and other distortionary trade practices create an unfair advan-tage for those businesses that they protect. New Zealand wants rules that aim to reduce the trade dis-torting measures of other countries at and inside the border. New Zea-land also wants to access markets on similar terms to its major com-petitors. Provide certainty and pre-

dictability: the costs of trading with, or doing business in, another country are significant. New Zea-land wants to provide certainty that the “rules of the game” won’t change to protect both those busi-nesses that are already established in a market, and encourage new players to enter.

“It’s important that we remain an open and outward-facing coun-try focused on creating and embrac-ing trading opportunities, and Trade Agenda 2030 outlines our plan for achieving that,” English

Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Trade to enhance its trade work, with a focus on improving market access, maximizing benefits from existing FTAs and negotiating new ones, helping business internation-alize and tackling non-tariff bar-riers; the development of a single point of contact to allow exporters to alert the government to non-tariff barriers and to get better information and support; and the opening of a new embassy in Dub-lin, Ireland, and a high High Com-mission in Colombo, Sri Lanka.

The Dairy Companies Associa-tion of New Zealand (DCANZ) said it welcomed the Trade Agenda 2030.

“We are pleased to see the gov-ernment’s ongoing commitment to leveling the playing field and

creating market options for New Zealand dairy exporters, who have contributed approximately $14 billion of export revenue to our economy in 2016,” said Kimberly Crewther, DCANZ’s executive director.

According to a recent NZIER report for DCANZ, dairy trade liberalization to date has boosted New Zealand dairy export returns by $2.3 billion.

Elimination of remaining dairy tariffs would add $1.3 billion to the value of current New Zealand dairy exports (for more details, please see Removal Of All Dairy Tar-iffs Would Increase New Zealand’s Dairy Export Volume By 2.1%, on page 9 of our February 24, 2017 issue by scanning the QR Code on p. 2 of this issue).

commented. “It will see us seek to forge new trade agreements, maxi-mize the benefits of existing ones, focus more on tackling non-tariff barriers, put more emphasis on services, investment and digital trade issues, and work even more closely with our exporters to help them create and succeed in new markets.”

The Trade Agenda 2030 pack-age includes, among other things, $35.3 million to the Ministry of Primary Industries to focus on boosting the value of New Zea-land’s primary sector exports, including through targeting non-tariff barriers; $20.3 million to the



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Urschel Labs Receives Patent For Dicing Machines; Leprino Gets Patent For Method For Preparing CheesesWashington—The US Patent and Trademark Office this week issued a patent for an invention that provides dicing machines and methods that promote the capa-bility of producing diced solid and semi-solid materials such as cheese.

The inventor is Scott Alan Klockow. The patent was assigned to Urschel Laboratories, Inc., Val-paraiso, IN.

According to one aspect of the invention, a machine for cutting food products includes a stationary case surrounding a rotating impel-ler, a support structure intercon-nected with the stationary case, and a feed drum, a circular cutter, and a cross-cutter that are each indi-vidually rotatably mounted to the support structure by cantilevered shafts. The shafts of the feed drum, the circular cutter, and the cross-cutter each have an outboard end.

The machine further includes a knife for producing slices by slic-ing a solid or semi-solid material exiting through the stationary case under the influence of the impel-ler, circular knives on the circu-lar cutter that are adapted and arranged to cut into strips the slices produced by the knife, and cross-cut knives on the cross-cutter that are adapted and arranged to dice the strips produced by the circular knives.

The machine also includes a stripper plate having a first edge between the circular cutter and the cross-cutter for removing the strips from the circular cutter, and outboard support means for sup-porting and radially centering the

outboard ends of the shafts of at least the feed drum, the circular cutter, and the cross-cutter and for supporting and securing the strip-per plate relative thereto.

A technical effect of the inven-tion is the ability to increase the rigidity of the circular cutter, cross-cutter and stripper plate to permit greater precision with respect to the placement and proximity of the second edge of the stripper plate relative to the cross-cut knives of the cross-cutter, which is desirable when processing relatively hard solid materials, for example, frozen food products.

Also this week, the USPTO issued a patent for methods for pre-paring a variety of cheese products, and systems for preparing such cheeses and slurries.

Inventors are Richard K. Merrill and Mayank Singh. It was assigned to Leprino Foods Company.

Some of the cheese processing methods involve initially provid-ing a slurry that comprises one or more ingredients that one seeks to incorporate into the final cheese product. The slurry is then com-bined with a cheese precursor to form an admixture. The resulting admixture is then processed to form the final cheese product.

The slurry can be combined with a variety of cheese precursors including a cheese curd ingredient, a mixture of cheese curd ingredi-ents, a coagulum, a cheeese curd, a heated mass of cheese, a dry mixed cheese, or a same day diced cheese.

A variety of ingredients can be incorporated into the slurry, including, but not limited to, a nonfat dry milk a milk protein, an acidity regulator, an acid, an anticaking agent, an antifoaming agent, a coloring agent, an emulsi-fier, an enzyme preparation, and a flavoring agent.

Vermont Creamery(Continued from p. 1)

Hooper and Reese, who founded the business in 1984, said Land O’Lakes is the ideal new owner. A farmer-owned agricultural coop-erative, Land O’Lakes has been in operation for more than 95 years. Best known for its iconic butter brand, LOL is a diverse business that also includes Purina Animal Nutrition and WinField United. At its core, Land O’Lakes is driven by agricultural products that return value to farmers and fulfill its pur-pose of feeding human progress.

“We have always taken seriously our commitment to our farmers, employees and Vermont’s work-ing landscape — these values are at the core of our decision to sell the business,” Hooper said. “As we experience unprecedented growth, we need a partner who can bring the resources and expertise neces-sary to help us realize our vision and the potential of our business.”

“We purchased Vermont Creamery and welcome them to the Land O’Lakes family because we love their brand and would like to help bring it to even more peo-ple,” Policinski said. “We share a value-added, branded approach to marketing our products, a mean-ingful respect for our customers and deeply rooted rural values.”

“After years of thoughtful plan-ning and a rigorous selection pro-cess, we are confident that we have found the best steward of our busi-ness, values and people in Land O’Lakes,” Reese said. “We are both respected dairy brands with deep connections to farmers and an unyielding commitment to quality and innovation.

“We look forward to this oppor-tunity to tell our story more broadly and increase access to our high-

quality dairy products,” he added.Reese and Hooper will serve as

trusted advisors and brand ambas-sadors for the business. Adeline Druart, Vermont Creamery’s presi-dent, and the leadership team will remain in place as will all employ-ees of the business.

“we are confident that we have found the best steward of our business, values and people in Land

O’Lakes.”

—Bob Reese

Ayers Brook Goat Dairy is not included in the transaction. The Hooper family will retain owner-ship of the farm, which will con-tinue to serve as a key supplier to the creamery and catalyst for the growth of the goat dairy industry in Vermont.

“Bob and Allison have been such incredible entrepreneurs building Vermont Creamery’s success and mentoring the team on their vision and values for the business,” Druart said. “Partnering with Land O’Lakes adds the next key ingredients for our growth: additional resources and dairy expertise.”

Combining the European tra-dition of cheesemaking with Vermont’s terroir, Vermont Creamery’s line of fresh and aged goat cheeses, cultured butter, and creme fraiche have won over 100 national and international awards. In its 32nd year of business, Ver-mont Creamery supports a network of more than 20 family farms, pro-moting sustainable agriculture in the region.



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CFTC Issues Order Requiring Davisco Foods To Pay Penalty For Acting As FDM Without Registering With CFTCWashington—The US Commod-ity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) this week issued an order filing and settling charges against Davisco Foods International, Inc., based in Le Sueur, MN, for fail-ure to register with the CFTC as a futures commission merchant (FCM).

According to the CFTC order, beginning in at least May 2011, Davisco acted as a futures commis-sion merchant without being reg-istered. Davisco routinely accepted and placed orders on behalf of its milk suppliers for CME Class III milk futures contracts. The milk suppliers received credits and deb-its to their Davisco accounts based upon the settlement price of those contracts.

Davisco suppliers signed a “Milk Patron Agreement,” which contained an option to enter into a “Futures Milk Contract-ing Program,” the CFTC order stated. Suppliers who signed up for this program placed orders with Davisco for CME Class III futures contracts. Davisco then submitted these orders to its broker. Davisco adjusted its payments to the milk suppliers based upon the settle-ment price of the Class III milk futures contract positions that Davisco had entered into on their behalf.

While it solicited and accepted funds, Davisco did so only as a pass-through, and any profit or loss was reflected in the milk patrons’ accounting, the CFTC order said. Davisco did not charge any fees in connection with these transac-tions.

Although Davisco did not profit from these activities, its business received a benefit from offering the FCM services to its clients, the CFTC order stated.

Section 4d of the Commod-ity Exchange Act (CEA) makes it unlawful for any person to act as a futures commission merchant unless the person is registered with the CFTC. According to the CFTC order, Davisco acted as an FCM by accepting milk suppli-ers’ orders for CME Class III milk futures contracts; accepting money from, or extending credit to, the milk suppliers in the form of deb-its and credits to supplier accounts in connection with those transac-tions; and, after receiving milk sup-pliers’ trading instructions, placing those orders with its broker under Davisco’s name.

The CFTC order requires Davisco to pay a $150,000 civil monetary penalty and to cease and desist from further violations of the CEA, as charged.

Continental Dairy, fairlife Receive Michigan Food, Ag Investment Program Grant To Help Expand Coopersville OperationsLansing, MI—The Michi-gan Commission of Agriculture and Rural Development voted Wednesday to award a Food and Agriculture Investment Program grant to Continental Dairy Facili-ties LLC and fairlife LLC, two separate companies that are co-located on the same processing site in Coopersville, MI.

Continental and fairlife will use their $225,000 performance-based grant from the Michigan Depart-ment of Agriculture and Rural Development (MDARD) to help expand operations to include new

products and production lines. Fairlife aims to increase capacity

by adding a third packaging line to produce fairlife milk, Core Power, and Yup. The additional line will result in $120 million in private investment and 42 new jobs, MDARD said.

Continental is expanding operations to produce butter and buttermilk powder from cream, which will result in $53 million in private investment and 10 new jobs.

In total, the companies will invest $173 million and create 52 new jobs to support the Coopers-ville Dairy Park Campus, accord-ing to MDARD.

The expansion and develop-ment of Continental and fairlife will require additional wastewater treatment capacity, which is esti-mated to cost approximately $3.7

million. The grant will be used for the wastewater project to support the expansions from both compa-nies.

“Continental Dairy is very pleased to partner with the state of Michigan and the Michigan Department of Agriculture and Rural Development to identify investment opportunities that recognize growth potential in the state’s dairy industry while work-ing to protect the environment that we all share and cherish,” said Steven Cooper, chief operat-ing officer and general manager of Continental Dairy.

On Tuesday, the Michigan Stra-tegic Fund board had authorized a $2,407,000 Michigan Business Development Program perfor-mance-based grant for the Conti-nental/fairlife project.


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FDA, CDC, FSIS Release New Food Safety Analytics Strategic PlanWashington—The US Food and Drug Administration (FDA), Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) and USDA’s Food Safety and Inspection Service (FSIS) have issued a new “Strate-gic Plan for 2017-2021” as part of the Interagency Food Safety Ana-lytics Collaboration (IFSAC).

IFSAC was established in 2011 to improve coordination of federal food safety analytic efforts and address cross-cutting priorities for food safety data collection, analy-sis, and use. Its projects and stud-ies aim to identify foods that are important sources of human illness.

IFSAC focuses analytic efforts on four priority pathogens: Listeria monocytogenes, Escherichia coli, Salmonella, and Campylobacter. CDC estimates that, together, these four pathogens cause 1.9 mil-lion cases of foodborne illness in the US each year.

Under the new strategic plan, IFSAC will focus on continuing to improve estimates of the sources of foodborne illnesses and devel-oping methods to estimate how these sources change over time. The three goals of the new strate-gic plan are to improve the use and quality of new and existing data sources; improve analytic methods and models; and enhance commu-nication about IFSAC progress.

The strategic plan outlines key objectives to achieve those goals, including: Enhance the collection and

quality of relevant source data; Enhance the use of existing

regulatory and foodborne illness surveillance data; Incorporate genomic data and

other novel data sources; Explore ways to address key

gaps in data quality, methods and models; Develop new analytic

approaches and models to maxi-mize use of existing data; Expand the availability of

technical and scientific expertise through collaboration with inter-nal and external partners; Enhance relationships and

engagement with internal and external groups; and Improve the synthesis, inter-

pretation and dissemination of analytical findings for multiple audiences.

The new strategic plan also highlights accomplishments from IFSAC’s first five years, and the group’s intent to continue engag-ing with stakeholders on future work.

For more information on the Interagency Food Safety Analytics Collaboration, visit the collabora-tion’s website, at https://www.cdc.gov/foodsafety/ifsac/.

Yogurt Sales Drop At General Mills, Due To Drop In ‘Light’ Products; Whole Milk Yogurts EyedNew York—Yogurts that have more fat and taste better are gain-ing popularity, a trend that Gen-eral Mills says is hurting its US yogurt sales.

The company said its US yogurt sales were down 20 percent for the quarter that ended February 26, 2017, with far steeper declines in Yoplait Light and Yoplait Greek 100 than for original Yoplait.

Jeff Harmening, the company’s president and chief operating offi-cer, noted the performance reflects the broader declines in “light” and “diet” products as people move away from calorie counting in search of “calories that count.”

As a result, Harmening said General Mills is looking to use more whole milk in its yogurts, and pointed to the launch of its Yoplait custard yogurt earlier this year.

That product has more calories than even original Yoplait, but tastes “really, really good,” he com-mented.

Yogurts that are “simple” with an “artisanal” feel and deliver on taste are more popular, General Mills said, and the company plans to launch a yogurt this summer to try to compete better in that pre-mium segment.

General Mills has been trying to do a better job staying on top of trends in the yogurt category, after acknowledging it was slow to act on the surging popularity of Greek yogurt several years ago. The 20 percent drop in domestic yogurt sales for the three months

ended February 26 marked the company’s third straight quarter of double-digit declines, following a 7 percent drop for the previous fis-cal year.

The number of options in the yogurt section has expanded over the last several years, Gen-eral Mills noted, with supermar-kets devoting more shelf space to them. Yoplait had a market share of 19 percent last year, according to market researcher Euromonitor International, down from 25 per-cent in 2011.

Another challenge in yogurt has been competitors discounting more heavily as a result of declin-ing dairy costs, General Mills announced.

The company said its higher prices relative to competitors also hurt other categories during the quarter.


Federal Order Mailbox Milk Price Averaged $15.95 In 2016, Down $1.07 From 2015New England States Had Highest Average Mailbox Price, Michigan LowestWashington—The mailbox milk price for selected reporting areas in federal milk marketing orders averaged 15.95 per hundred-weight in 2016, down $1.07 from 2015 and the lowest average since 2009’s $12.82 per hundred, accord-ing to figures recently released by USDA’s Agricultural Marketing Service (AMS).

Last year was also the first year since 2009 in which the federal order mailbox milk price averaged under $16.00 per hundred.

The mailbox price has now declined two straight years after reaching a record $24.04 per hun-dred in 2014.

California’s mailbox milk price last year averaged $14.68 per hun-dred, down 40 cents from 2015 and the lowest average since 2010’s $14.37, according to the California Department of Food and Agricul-ture (CDFA).

The difference between the average federal order mailbox price in 2016 and California’s 2016 aver-age mailbox milk price, $1.27 per hundred, was the lowest difference since 2005, when it was $1.10 per hundred ($14.98 per hundred for federal orders, $13.88 per hundred for California). The largest differ-ence since then was $2.30 per hun-dred, in 2012 ($18.59 for federal orders, $16.29 for California)

The mailbox milk price repre-sents the net pay price received by dairy farmers. It includes all pay-ments received for milk sold and all costs associated with marketing the milk. The price is a weighted average for the reporting area and is reported at the average butter-fat text. The mailbox price does

not include any Milk Income Loss Contract (MILC) payments (when that program was in effect), but does include, for the most part, the assessment under the Coopera-tives Working Together (CWT) program.

Information is provided for those areas in which prices are reported for at least 75 percent of the milk marketed under federal orders.

During 2016, the average monthly mailbox milk price ranged from a low of $14.37 per hundred in May to a high of $18.67 per hundred in December. California’s average monthly mailbox milk prices in 2016 ranged from a low of $12.58 per hundred in May to a high of $17.26 per hundred in December.

Among the selected reporting areas in federal milk orders, aver-age mailbox milk prices ranged from a high of $17.27 per hundred in the New England states (Ver-mont, Connecticut, Maine, Mas-sachusetts, New Hampshire and Rhode Island) to a low of $14.31 per hundred in Michigan.

By contrast, in every year from 2010 through 2015, Florida had the highest average mailbox milk price and New Mexico had the lowest average mailbox milk price. In 2016, Florida’s mailbox milk price averaged $17.23 per hun-dred, four cents below the average for the New England states, while New Mexico’s mailbox milk price averaged $14.43 per hundred, 12 cents higher than the average for Michigan.

The New England states and Florida were the only regions or states with an average mailbox milk price above $17.00 per hun-dred in 2016.

States or regions with aver-age mailbox milk prices above

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$16.00 per hundred last year included: Eastern Pennsylvania, $16.03 per hundred; Appalachian states (Kentucky, North Carol-lina, South Carolina, Tennessee and Virginia), $16.46 per hun-dred; Southeast states (Alabama, Arkansas, Georgia, Louisiana and Mississippi), $16.27 per hundred; Southern Missouri, $16.15 per hundred; Western Pennsylvania, $16.07 per hundred; Ohio, $16.05 per hundred; Wisconsin, $16.59 per hundred; Minnesota, $16.45 per hundred; Iowa, $16.29 per hundred; and Illinois, $16.34 per hundred.

One other state had an aver-age 2016 mailbox price above the federal order average of $15.95 per hundred: New York, at $15.97 per hundred.

States or regions with average 2016 mailbox prices under the federal order average included, in addition to Michigan and New Mexico: Indiana, $15.76 per hun-dred; Corn Belt States (Kansas, Nebraska and northern Missouri), $15.28 per hundred; Western Texas, $15.33 per hundred; and Northwest States (Oregon and Washington), $15.81 per hun-dred.

$10.00

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$15.00

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Dairy Processors Have Until April 14 To Apply For Grow Wisconsin Dairy Processor Grants Madison—The Wisconsin Depart-ment of Agriculture, Trade and Consumer Protection (WDATCP) is accepting requests for proposals under the Grow Wisconsin Dairy Processor Grants program through April 14, 2017.

The grants are intended to foster innovation, improve profitability and sustain the long-term viabil-ity of Wisconsin’s dairy processing facilities.

The Grow Wisconsin Dairy Processor Grant is customizable for each processor and can be used to hire consultants to address a wide range of business needs, including food safety, staff training or mod-ernization.

Eligible applicants must operate a licensed dairy processing plant engaged in pasteurizing, process-ing or manufacturing milk or dairy products that is, or will be, located in Wisconsin.

Grant recipients will be chosen through a competitive selection process.

“The demand for quality Wis-consin dairy products continues to grow around the world,” said Dan Smith, division administrator for the WDATCP’s Division of Agri-cultural Development. “To meet the demand, dairy processors need to be innovative, efficient and adaptable.”

Application materials can be found at https://datcp.wi.gov/Pages/Growing_WI/DairyDevelopment.aspx.

For more information, con-tact grants specialist Juli Speck, at (608) 224-5134; or e-mail [email protected].

Cheese To MarketContinued from p. 8

tently,” she said. “You just apolo-gize and carry on from there.”

Also, if the distributor doesn’t pan out and they don’t end up making many sales, you need to move on to someone else, Hoff-mann continued.

“Later on in the relationship if sales aren’t going that well, I don’t feel that bad about not making it exclusive,” she said.

Selling cheese to a new region is also a challenge for smaller pro-ducers.

“Later on in the relationship if sales

aren’t going that well, I don’t feel that bad about not making it

exclusive.”

—Sarah Hoffmann Green Dirt Farm

The one hopeful benefit I have in starting a new cheese operation with a bigger scale is the relation-ships I’ve built over the last eight years, Adams said.

The mongers that like what Alemar has done, are hopefully

excited about this new venture in California, he said.

Selling to a new region is a ground game, and you have to be persistent, polite and go out and engage people, he said. You never know when the good break is com-ing.

“There are times over the last eight years when we’d get written up or win an award and we’d think the phone would start ringing and never stop. That is not the case,” Adams said.

“You have to go out and earn the business, you have to make cheese, you have to tell the story, and you have to keep at it every day,” he continued.

Promotions, DiscountsIn general, promotions yield more sales and we keep them mostly local, Hoffmann said. They’re organized with our distributors and store groups, and they’ll decide which cheeses will be on sale dur-ing certain special events.

The discounts we offer all goes towards something they do – reci-pes or a feature article in their in-store magazine, or social media promotions.

“They usually loosely commit to a certain amount of cheese,” she said. “They don’t pre-purchase, but they may pre-book a certain amount. It’s a very useful way to work with your stores and the

retailers, and get a bit of momen-tum going.”

Shelf-talkers, small cards that are near a product in grocery stores or cheese shops that provide a bit of information about the cheese, can also be helpful.

“Most of our shelf-talkers just list the name, our website, and the fact that we’re Animal Wel-fare Approved,” Hoffmann said. “Something to catch the custom-er’s eye and help them focus on the product on the shelf.”

There are also a number of ways to bring in customers through social media, she continued. We primarily use social media in con-junction with a special offer.

“We might do some social media posts around the holidays that focus entirely on our cheese,” she said. “We also host a lot of events on our farm, and those events are the marketing arm of our business, so we talk a lot about our events on our social media page.”

Instagram isn’t a very good advertising platform – it’s not good for offering a special or making a sale, Hoffman said. It’s more about telling your story and building a relationship with the person look-ing at the Instagram page.

We do a lot more with our Face-book page – advertising specific products and services that we offer, Hoffmann said.

Social media is also a great way to build newsletter contacts, so we know who our really good direct customers are, she said. Then we can do additional storytelling with them through our newsletter plat-form.

Shepherd’s Way doesn’t have a specific translation from social media presence to end customers, but uses it to promote interest in things like seasonal cheeses.



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Ireland’s Dairy Exports Increased 2% In 2016; Prospects For 2017 Look ‘Relatively Positive’Dublin, Ireland—Ireland’s dairy exports in 2016 were valued at 3.38 billion euros (US$3.63 billion), up about 2 percent from 2015, accord-ing to a report recently released by the Irish Food Board (Bord Bia).

The global dairy market remained weak during the first half of 2016 as supply growth continued to outpace import demand, before rebalancing as the year progressed, leading to an improved price envi-ronment. A rise of 5 percent in Irish milk production and a recov-ery in international demand as the year progressed combined to boost Ireland’s dairy exports higher than a year earlier.

The dairy category encom-passes both primary products such as cheese, milk powders, butter, value-added products and ingredi-ents such as specialized nutritional powders (including casein, infant formula and chocolate crumb).

Irish milk supplies were over 5 percent or 300 million liters higher for the first 10 months of 2016 fol-lowing the 13 percent increase seen in 2015.

The largest increases were seen in the first half of 2016, particu-larly in the first quarter, which recorded a 34 percent increase in production compared to 2015.

Since September output has slowed somewhat.

The UK remains a key Irish market, accounting for around a quarter of total Irish dairy exports. A decline of over 10 percent was recorded in the value of exports in 2016 at an estimated 840 million euros. Declines in cheese, skim milk powder and whole milk pow-der volumes were somewhat offset by steady trade in butter. The value of trade, however, was affected by

the weaker sterling relative to the euro.

Irish dairy exports to other Euro-pean Union (EU) markets were almost 6 percent lower at some 880 million euros, accounting for 26 percent of total trade. Decreases were recorded in shipments to the Netherlands, Germany, France and Italy, with some growth in trade to Spain.

Lower values of dairy commod-ity prices largely led to this decline. Volumes of specialized nutritional dairy powders and cheese experi-enced growth.

The value of Irish dairy exports to international markets grew by an estimated 19 percent to 1.66 billion euros, accounting for 49 percent of total exports, up from 41 percent in 2015. Asia led the way with a 31 percent growth in exports to account for over 23 per-cent of total dairy exports. Higher trade was also recorded to Africa and North America.

The strongest-performing Irish export categories in 2016 were spe-cialized nutritional dairy powders while whey, whole milk powder and yogurt also recorded growth.

Despite higher volumes, the value of cheese exports declined by around 4 percent in 2016 to 675 million euros. The UK accounts for over 50 percent of Ireland’s cheese exports and lower trade to this market led to the fall in total cheese export value.

A rise was recorded in cheese exports to continental EU markets such as the Netherlands, Germany and Spain. Increased trade was also evident to the Middle East notably Saudi Arabia, while Asian mar-kets such as Japan also recorded increases, albeit from relatively


low levels.Higher volumes of butter were

offset by a decline in unit prices to leave butter export values back marginally. Lower exports to Euro-pean markets were recorded due to weaker market prices while growth was seen in volume to North America, the Middle East and Africa.

Specialized nutritional dairy powders also showed further export growth as higher unit values coupled with steady volumes and a rise in demand, particularly from Asian markets, helped drive the trade. Volumes exported to China increased strongly in 2016. Other notable growth markets included Vietnam, and continental Euro-pean markets including Germany and France.

Prospects for Irish dairy exports in the early part of 2017 look “rel-atively positive,” the report said. Steady demand growth, aided by recovering oil prices and an antici-pated slowdown in production in key exporting regions, should con-tinue to help the trade.

However, as a high proportion of Ireland’s dairy exports go to markets that trade in sterling and US dollars, exchange rate fluctua-tions will have a large bearing on returns in the sector, according to the report.

Hydrite Chemical Co. Acquires Lubbock, TX’s, SERVCOBrookfield, WI—Hydrite Chemi-cal Co. recently announced the acquisition of SERVCO, a spe-cialty chemical company located in Lubbock, TX.

SERVCO’s facility in north-west Texas will expand Hydrite’s geographic reach, enabling the company to more effectively ser-vice customers in the southwestern portion of the US.

“SERVCO’s strength in the dairy, food and beverage, and energy industries align well with Hydrite’s positioning as a leader in the specialty chemical market,” said John Honkamp, Hydrite’s CEO.

With the acquisition, Hydrite now has 12 facilities spread throughout six states, includ-ing Wisconsin, Illiniois, Indiana, Iowa, and California, in addition to Texas.

“We are excited to welcome SERVCO employees and cus-tomers into our family, and build upon the great foundation that SERVCO established,” Honkamp added.

For more information, visit www.hydrite.com.


Pine River Pre-Pack, Inc. is responding to one of the leading challenges in the cold pack cheese market: how to reinvent cold pack for younger consumers.

Through fiery and bold new flavors and simple product appli-cations, Pine River is showing its younger audience that cold pack can be an everyday staple rather than something enjoyed at grand-ma’s table during the holidays.

The cold pack cheese business has been stable at best in recent years. Per capita consumption of cold pack cheese foods and other cheese foods and spreads was 2.83 pounds in 2015 (the most recent year for which statistics are avail-able), down from 2.97 pounds in 2014 but up from 2.73 pounds in 2013, according to USDA figures.

Per capita consumption of cold pack cheese was over three pounds for most years between 1995 and 2011, with a peak of 3.98 pounds in 1999.

US production of cold pack cheese and cheese foods totaled 37.8 million pounds in 2015, down from 44.2 million pounds in 2014 and the lowest production level since 2002, when output totaled 32.4 million pounds.

“It’s an interesting niche market with a lot of opportunities for gour-met products from quality focused companies,” said Pine River presi-dent Philip A. Lindemann, Jr.

While the older consumer demo-graphic continues to drive sales, Pine River’s innovative flavors are enticing younger customers, according to marketing director Mary Lindemann. The company is appealing to the younger genera-tion’s affinity for cooking – putting cold pack in different recipes.

“Also, since our spreads are made with whey, it is a good source of protein,” Mary said. “That’s a plus for health-conscious consum-ers.”

When I go to trade shows, I share with customers that you can use cheese spread in any recipe that calls for a natural cut of cheese or heavy cream, she said. Your recipe is much smoother with the option to add flavor from our growing product line.

Cooking shows are also helping boost sales, Mary added. People are all about creating fun, tasty food at home and cheese spreads are an easy ingredient to enjoy in lots of recipes.

“Our Smoky Bacon is fantastic on a baked potato or mixed in with scrambled eggs. Cheese spreads can also be used in a lot of casseroles or is a great addition to any pasta dish,” Mary said. “A newer flavor for Pine River, Chunky Bleu and Cheddar, enhances any steak, or use your favorite spread as a great dipping sauce for chicken wings or French fries.”

“Our Spicy Beer Cold Pack is also great for soups,” she contin-ued. “It’s all about breaking beyond the cracker.”

“We’re adding excitement to cold pack through social media outreach and adapting our prod-uct line,” Phil said. “Bolder and hotter flavors are drawing a lot of attention when we exhibit at trade shows around the country.”

“It’s not our traditional consum-ers that are drawn to ghost pepper and habanero,” he said. “It’s the younger set with those taste buds that can eat fire.”

Pine River’s best-selling fla-vor continues to be its Port Wine

spread because of its nostalgia for every age group, Mary said. Kids and adults talk about having Port Wine spread at their grandmas’ house during the holidays.

“Our fastest-growing flavor is Aged Asiago, though,” Phil said. “That one is just shooting to the top.”

“Special flavors are what’s really going to grow the market,” Phil said. “All the companies making cheese spread are coming up with crazy new flavors.”

‘Clean’ Label For Cheese SpreadIn response to the growth and importance of clean labels with consumers, Pine River introduced a gourmet line of clean cold packs in 2016 with four flavors; Hot Habanero, Garlic and Herb, Sharp Cheddar, and Port Wine.

“The drive for a clean label began with a trip to the Fancy Food Show, which we have been exhibiting for the last 10 years,” Mary said. “They’d taste the cheese and say ‘It’s delicious’ and look at the label and say ‘Ugh – can you do it without preservatives?’”

Matching the extended shelf life of its traditional cold packs without the use of preservatives was a challenge for Pine River Pre-Pack.

“Our 23 employees worked together to create a spread that was free of artificial flavors, colors and preservatives while at the same time maintaining the extended quality our consumers have grown to expect,” said Phil.

Next on the horizon from Pine River is adding to their gourmet cold packs by using rBST free ingredients which will help the marketability of its clean product line.

Semantics Of ‘Cold Pack’ Versus ‘Cold Pack Cheese Food’About 95 percent of the cheese used in Pine River cheese spreads comes from Wisconsin.

Being based in Wisconsin, Pine River recognizes the great cheese produced in the state and the importance of buying local.

“It’s a tough product to make, especially if you care about quality as much as I do,” Phil said. “I only use cheese that tastes good at the start. We don’t have to mask bad or off flavors because of the high quality of our ingredients.”

“Consumers would be surprised at how much the age and flavor of the cheese and blending tech-niques can impact the final prod-uct,” Phil said. “Most people think you just take a little Cheddar,

Pine River Pre-Pack Targets Younger Audience With New Cold Pack Flavors

throw in something else, cut it up and make it spreadable.”

“There’s so many other consid-erations like time, temperature, age of the cheese, that impacts the tex-ture at the end,” he said. “Purchas-ing premium 40-pound blocks of Grade A Cheddar and aging to our specifications is crucial in crafting our award winning products.”

We are proud to call our prod-ucts “cold pack cheese food,” Mary said. If you look in your local grocer, you’d see similar products called all different things – spread-able cheese, cheese spread, spread-able Cheddar – but if you see ‘cold pack cheese food,’ you know it’s the highest level of quality with the most cheese in it.”

The federal government’s stan-dard of identity for cold pack cheese food requires that a product contain 51 percent or more cheese as an ingredient with a moisture level of less than 44 percent.

“There’s so many other considerations

like time, temperature, age of the cheese, that impacts the texture at the end. Purchasing premium 40-pound blocks of Grade A Cheddar and aging

to our specifications is crucial in crafting our award winning

products.”

—Philip Lindemann, Jr., Pine River Pre-Pack

By removing “cold pack cheese food” from labels, companies can increase the moisture level and substitute oils and powders for cheese, Phil said.

Those are actions that can improve your bottom line, but will be evident in the quality of the fin-ished spread.

Private label also makes up a growing segment for Pine River as grocers and cheese makers look to diversify their product line and associate their name with a quality product.

Whether it is using Pine River’s existing recipes, creating a unique custom formula, or using a cheese makers own cheese to create their own blend, Pine River welcomes each partnership.

At the 2017 US Champion-ship Cheese Contest, Pine River’s Chunky Bleu and Smoky Bacon took second and third respectively in the Cold Pack Cheese Food Category.

While the Pine River brand

• See Pine River Pre-Pack, p. 23

Phil and Mary Lindemann of Pine River Pre-Pack display the top three winners in the US Cham-pionship Cheese Contest’s cold pack cheese food category. All three of the cheese entries were made at the Pine River Pre-Pack plant in Newton, WI


Pine River Pre-PackContinued from p. 22

did not take first, Widmer’s Brick Cheese Spread, a private label cus-tom blend produced by Pine River took home the gold.

Widmer’s Cheese Cellar, Teresa WI, saw a market for their washed rind brick cheese blended into a unique spread and partnered with Pine River to create this award winning item.

“We are always interested in working with cheese makers, win-eries, brewers to create specialty blends, says Phil. “We can work with natural cuts, whether it be a Gouda, Brick, goat cheese, Asiago, Pepper Jack or Feta. They make delicious spreads and expand and enhance the cheese maker’s line.”

“Anything we make is as good as our own. We don’t cut corners on any private label products,” he continued.

“Most private label companies have such great brand recognition, it’s a no-brainer to add spreads to their product catalogues or space on the grocery shelf,” Mary added.

In 2011, Pine River built a new manufacturing facility that dou-bled its production capacity with two state-of-the-art cutters that assure standout flavor and texture. In 2016, its cheese manufacturing became SQF (Safe Quality Food) Level 3.

“Most private label companies have such

great brand recognition, it’s a no-brainer to add spreads to their product catalogues or space on

the grocery shelf.”

—Mary Lindemann, Pine River Pre-Pack

In addition to being SQF Level 3, the company’s ongoing initia-tive is the implementation of the Food Safety Modernization Act (FSMA).

“We are already compliant with FSMA, and are continuing to work with our suppliers and distribution outlets.” Phil said. “We’re talk-ing about every level of our busi-ness from procured ingredients, the storage facilities, the trucking companies and the stores that sell our spreads– everyone’s going to have to understand and implement the regulations and work together to keep our country’s food safe.”

Pine River crafts 16 different flavors that are sold nationwide through foodservice, retail distri-bution.

For more information, visit the company website at www.pineriver.com.

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Parmalat Mature Gouda Is South Africa Dairy Product Of The Year At Agri-ExpoSandringham, South Africa—Par-malat’s 10-month Mature Gouda made for Woolworths won South African Dairy Product of the Year here recently at the Agri-Expo Quality Awards.

This contest drew 854 entries from 83 producers, including 13 newcomers to the competition. A judging panel of 74 industry experts – from food technologists to cheese retailers and chefs – selected 16 entries with the Quality Mark of Excellence. They include:

Parmalat SA: Simonsberg Matured Gouda, Woolworths Matured Gouda 10 Months,

Matured Cheddar, Woolworths Vintage Cheddar

Klein River Cheese: Klein River Gruberg Extra Mature

Lancewood Holdings: PnP Low Fat Chunky Cottage Cheese-Sweet Piquant Pepper & Garlic, Medium Fat Plain Cream Cheese, PnP Medium Fat Cream Cheese-Balsamic & Onion Medium Fat Cream Cheese

De Pekelaar Kaas: Boerenkaas with Cumin

Fairview Cheese Company: Woolworths De Leeuwen

Delitaly Pty Ltd: Don Gelato Piemonte Hazelnuts

Fair Cape Dairies: Woolworths Full Cream Raspberry Yoghurt

Foxenburg Estate: Renosterbos Matured, 4 months

Clover: 1906 Extra Mature Cheddar, 0-18 months

Belnori Boutique Cheesery: Kilembe

Dalewood Fromage: Dalewood-Lanquedoc

“The process of determining the Dairy Product of the Year from such classes as ice cream and but-ter, or Cottage cheese and sheep’s milk cheese, is no easy feat,” said chief judge Kobus Mulder.

This year, we instituted a new procedure where all Quality win-ners are lined up and evaluated to determine the most superior dairy product, Mulder said. In previous years, the product with the high-est overall score was awarded this honor.

“We are only too aware that not all milk is created equal, and we were pleasantly surprised by the quality of entries we received,” said Agri-Expo CEO Johan Ehlers.



PAUL ROVEY has been re-elected as chairman of Dairy Manage-ment, Inc. (DMI), and MARI-LYN HERSHEY has been elected DMI vice chair. DAVID HARDIE has been elected secretary, and LARRY HANCOCK was elected DMI treasurer. AMBER HORN-LEITERMAN was elected chair of the National Dairy Board. Other officers include vice chair, BRAD SCOTT; secretary, JOE KELSAY; and treasurer, CAROL AHLEM. Officers for the United Dairy Industry Association (UDIA) are as follows: chair, NEIL HOFF; first vice chair, TOM DORSEY; sec-ond vice chair, TOM WOODS, American Dairy Association; JERRY MESSER, National Dairy Council; and RICK PODTBURG, UDIA Members relations. JIM REID was elected UDIA secre-tary and ALLEN MERRILL was elected treasurer.

TIM BROWN has been appointed president and chief operating offi-cer of Chobani, LLC, responsible for overseeing Chobani’s opera-tions, sales, marketing, legal and finance teams. Brown joins the company with more than 30 years of experience in the food business.

DANE ANDERSON has joined Custom Fabricating & Repair (CFR), responsible for leading the company’s Cheese Processing Division with the promotion of cheesemaking equipment includ-ing vats, de-whey, mellowing, salt-ing belts and process integration in cheese manufacturing facilities. Anderson has extensive experi-ence in the dairy and food pro-cessing industries, having worked for Cortez, Inc.; A&B Processing; and most recently, Dairy Farm-ers of America (DFA).TROY SPRUCE has been appointed director of cheese technology at CFR. In his new role, Spruce will participate in the design of new plants, as well as help optimize existing facilities. He will also be instrumental in CFR’s efforts to bring new cheese manufacturing technologies to market. Spruce began his career in 1987 at Fon-terra, starting out as an operator on the production floor and end-ing as a global process technolo-gist. He also worked for DFA and Hilmar Cheese in various capaci-ties. BLAKE CRISWELL is the new CFR vice president of dairy technology, leading the company’s Dryer & Evaporation Division. His manufacturing and engineer-ing experience includes all aspects of milk and whey processing, uti-lizing membrane filtration, separa-tion, ion-exchange, evaporation, crystallization, spray drying, pow-der handling, milling and packag-ing. Criswell also has experience in large-scale green-field and brown-field capital projects.

PERSONNEL TRUDY WASTWEET has joined the Midwest Dairy Association (MDA) in the newly-created position of chief operating offi-cer, effective March 27, 2017. Wastweet will be responsible for developing strategic and corporate communications for MDA, along with leading daily operations for the industry relations and inte-grated communications teams. Her non-checkoff responsibilities will include leadership and coor-dination for MDA partnerships with four state trade organizations, including South Dakota Dairy Producers, Nebraska State Dairy Association, Minnesota Milk Pro-ducers Association, and the Iowa State Dairy Association. Long-time MDA staff member LOUISE GALLAGHER will assume the role of chief administrative officer.

Golden State Foods (GSF) has made changes to its leadership team and global food operations. JOE HEFFINGTON, formerly corporate vice president and chief accounting officer, has been pro-moted to senior vice president and chief financial officer. BRIAN DICK, former corporate vice presi-dent and president of global liquid products North America, has been promoted to corporate senior vice president and president, global liq-uid products. Four other GFS pro-fessionals have been appointed or promoted, including BILL SAND-ERSON, corporate executive vice president and chief administrative officer; ED RODRIGUEZ, chief human resources officer; CAROL FAWCETT, corporate vice presi-dent and chief information officer; and GUILDA JAVAHERI, chief technology officer.

JAN KRUISE has been selected as managing director of Royal FrieslandCampina in Germany, succeeding PETER WELTEVRE-DEN, who in his new role with focus on cross-organizational projects within FrieslandCampina Consumer Products Europe, Mid-dle East & Africa. Kruise has over 25 years of experience in the con-sumer goods market, most recently serving as director of Lavazza’s business unit in Northern Europe. He started his career at Unilever, and spent over 13 years in several managerial roles in the Nether-lands and Russia.

Delbert Sloniker, 91, died Thurs-day, March 9, 2017 at his home in Medford, WI. Sloniker worked as a cheese maker in Greewood and Willard, WI, before moving to Stetsonville, WI, in 1956 to manage the Farmers Pride Cheese Factory. Sloniker also worked as a cheese and butter inspector for the USDA from 1968 until his retirement in 1986.

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Applications For Wisconsin Master Cheesemaker Class Of 2020 Due May 15, 2017Madison—The Wisconsin Cen-ter for Dairy Research (CDR) is accepting applications for its Wis-consin Master Cheesemaker pro-gram now through May 15, 2017.

In order to be accepted, a can-didate must be currently making cheese in a Wisconsin plant, have held a Wisconsin cheese maker’s license for a minimum of 10 years, and have participated in the CDR Cheese Technology Short Course and one other CDR course before applying to the program.

Other courses include the Wis-consin Cheese Grading Short Course, Artisan Cheese Course, Wisconsin CIP Workshop, and the Dairy HACCP Workshop. To graduate, the candidate must even-tually complete all these classes, along with three elective courses.

Students can choose from Pro-cess Cheese, Dairy Ingredient Applications, Dairy Chemistry, Dairy Ingredient Manufacturing, Buttermaking and Milk Pasteuri-zation. Each candidate must also participate in the program’s quality assurance component of plant and product inspection.

The program was designed to provide a formal sequence of courses to equip each cheese maker with the knowledge and skills needed to be competitive in both the national and international markets. It’s the only one of its kind in the US and offers experi-enced cheese makers who pass the extensive courses and training the opportunity to earn the Master’s designation.

This mark may only be used in conjunction with products for which the Master Cheesemaker is certified.

A cheese maker can choose to be certified as a Master in up to two cheeses at a time, and is required to have made those cheese varieties for at least five years prior to beginning the pro-gram. It typically takes two years and eight months from the time a cheese maker is accepted into the program until they graduate. After being accepted, each cheese maker will receive regular updates on course work completed and any additional course work needed to finish the program.

Applications for both new and returning Masters will be accepted through May 15.

For more information or to sub-mit an application, visit www.cdr.wisc.edu/masterceesemaker.



Clover Stornetta Re-brands As Clover Sonoma; Now “Business As A Power To Do Good”Full Line Of Convention Fluid Milk Products To Be GMO-Free In 2019Petaluma, CA—Third-generation owned Clover Stornetta Farms here is re-branded under a new name and has recently become a Certified B Corporation.

Now named Clover Sonoma, the company’s new B Corp status means it uses “business as a power to do good.”

During the Certified B Cor-poration process, the company achieved 97 points on its initial certification, which passed the median of 55 points and the 80 points required to qualify.

“Consumer demand for non-GMO products is predicted to be up 15 percent a year over the

next five years.”

—Kristel Corson, Clover Sonoma

The B Corp assessment is an evaluation of a company’s mission, transparency, social responsibility and environmental footprint to ensure that companies receiving the status of B Corp meet the high-est standards of verified social and environmental performance.

“The process for Clover took about nine months. B Corp doesn’t have a set of ‘regulations,’ per se. Instead, companies are given points for each section based upon business practices,” said Kristel Corson, director of marketing at Clover.

“Clover has the highest stan-dards in the dairy industry – we pride ourselves on elevating dairy to new heights and our passionate support of animal welfare, sustain-able business practice, and local community are the hallmarks of our business,” Corson said.

“This is truly not new for Clo-ver, but rather woven into the fabric of the way we’ve naturally been doing business for decades,” she continued. “We are excited to become a part of this thoughtful collective on the forefront of doing good.”

The refreshed Clover Sonoma name honors the company’s heri-tage of being from Sonoma county, while looking ahead to Clover’s expanded product distribution to Southern California and beyond.

The company’s conventional product packaging had remained unchanged since the 1980s and its organic product packaging was untouched since the early 2000s. The Clover Sonoma brand update

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“For more than 100 years, our brand has worked closely with family dairy farmers in Sonoma and Marin Counties to produce the best milk on the market, and now our Clover Sonoma name expresses this heritage while look-ing to the future,” said Marcus Benedetti, president and CEO, Clover Sonoma.

“Our independence allows us to continue to provide the quality our customers have known for years, and our new status as a Certified B Corporation continues our mis-sion to produce quality dairy that cares for family farms, animals, the environment and our communi-ties,” Benedetti said.The company is also in the process of converting its convention fluid milk products to be Non-GMO Project Verified over the next two

years. The Non-GMO Project Veri-

fied seal provides third-party test-ing and the highest standard for non-GMO products.

Clover Sonoma’s first non-GMO conventional half-gallon milk products are on the shelf today, and the full line of conven-tional fluid milk products will be transitioned by 2019.

Regarding a possible price increase for non-GMO conven-tion milk, Corson said that “pric-ing is market-based and fluctuates monthly, so we cannot be sure of exact pricing next year.”

“The public is increasingly demanding food that has not been genetically engineered,” Corson said. “Consumer demand for non-GMO products is predicted to be up 15 percent a year over the next five years.”

In fact, according to Consumer Reports, 72 percent of Americans say that it is important to avoid GMOs when they shop, and con-

sumers have been looking for a non-GMO conventional milk alternative, she said.

“That’s why, over the last year, Clover focused on how it could effectively and sustainably offer a non-GMO conventional milk in response to consumer demand,” Corson said.”

“With respect to other criteria like organic dairy foods and ani-mal welfare, those criteria are also very important to consumers. Clo-ver was the first dairy to become American Humane Certified, say no to the synthetic growth hor-mone rBST, and make an early entrance to provide and support organic dairy products,” Corson said.

“Providing a non-GMO Project Verified conventional milk option is the next step in our commitment to elevate dairy,” Corson contin-ued.

For more details on the new certification and GMO initiative, visit www.cloversonoma.com.

For more information, circle 27 on the Reader Response Card on p. 54


WCIC Ideas Showcase Spotlights Cheese Ingredients, Packaging, Water TreatmentMadison—The popular Ideas Showcase will return to the Wis-consin Cheese Industry Confer-ence here Wednesday, April 12 at the Alliant Energy Center.

Held on two stages in the center of the exhibit hall from 12:30 p.m. to 4:30 p.m., the Ideas Showcase is a series of quick seminars on the latest technologies for cheese, but-ter and whey manufacturers.

Free for all conference regis-trants, this year’s installment will focus on the latest dairy process-ing equipment, advances in cheese ingredients, packaging innova-tions, and water treatment and efficiency. Scheduled talks include:

Dairy Processing Equipment 12:30 p.m.-12:50 p.m. – Tetra

Pak: Introducing the Cheese-former from Tetra Pak 1:00 p.m.-1:20 p.m. – Eco-

lab: Mining CIP Data in a Cheese Plant to Enhance Operation and Product Quality 1:30 p.m.-1:50 p.m. – Quest

Industrial: Planning the Sites in Your Plant that will Benefit from Robotic Automation 2:00 p.m.-2:20 p.m. – GEA:

Innovations in Cream Cheese Pro-duction Technology

Advances In Cheese Ingredients

2:30 p.m.-2:50 p.m. – Chr. Hansen Inc.: Clean Label, Natu-ral Advances in Food Protection Ingredients 3:00 p.m.-3:20 p.m. – DSM

Food Specialties: Maxiren XDS and the Improvements to Your Cheese 3:30 p.m.-3:50 p.m. – Hydrite

Chemical Co.: OptiPhos: New Technology in Processed Cheese Applications 4:00 p.m.-4:20 p.m. –

AVEBE America: Whey Binding for Cream Cheese

Dairy Packaging Innovations 12:30 p.m.-12:50 p.m. – Kel-

ley Supply: Innovations in Packag-ing for Cheese – Vector-Viscofan Group 1:00 p.m.-1:20 p.m. – Bemis

North America: Concept to Com-mercialization: The Fast Track 1:30 p.m.-1:50 p.m. – ePac:

How to Leverage Digital Printing for Flexible Packaging for Greater Marketing Impact

Water Treatment & Efficiency 2:30 p.m.-2:50 p.m. –

Krohne: Monitoring of Product

Free Mobile App For WCIC Available In iTunesMadison—The Wisconsin Cheese Makers Association (WCMA) announced the launch of a free mobile app for the Wisconsin Cheese Industry Conference, set for April 12-13 here at the Alliant Energy Center.

Conference attendees are encouraged to download the app early to mark their favorite exhibi-tors, seminars, and events.

The mobile app is available in iTunes or Google Play by searching for “Cheese Conference.”

A quick download provides access to complete exhibitor infor-mation, a map of the exhibit floor, a list of educational seminars and Ideas Showcase presentations, speaker bios, and schedule alerts, said the WCMA.

“The Wisconsin Cheese Indus-try Conference is breaking all kinds of records: for the number of exhibitors, the variety of seminars, and the sheer volume of attend-ees,” said Judy Keller, WCMA events director.

Conference-goers will receive a hard copy of the official program at registration, but for those who pre-fer not to carry it with them, the 2017 Wisconsin Cheese Industry Conference mobile app provides all the details needed to engage with exhibitors and participate in seminars.

For more information, download the “Cheese Conference” app or visit www.cheeseconference.org. Online registration for the confer-ence ends on Tuesday, April 4.

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Loss and Increased Solids Recov-ery Via Self-Compensating Total Solids Sensor 3:00 p.m.-3:20 p.m. – Foth

Industrial and Environmen-tal: Present Pollutant Trading as a Potential Management Tool in lieu of Installing Additional Treatment Processes/Equipment to Comply with the New Phos-phorous Limits 3:30 p.m.-3:50 p.m. – SEH:

Improving Plant Efficiency, A Focused Review of Water and Wastewater 4:00 p.m.-4:20 p.m. – Main-

sail Global: Multi-Dimensional Approach Improving the Reliabil-ity, Dependability, and Efficiency of Cheese Wastewater Treatment Systems

Event RegistrationNew this year, the Wiscon-sin Cheese Makers Association (WCMA), conference host, is offering a special discount code for Wednesday exhibits-only registra-tion for employees of dairy man-ufacturing and dairy processing companies.

The discount code CM45 low-ers exhibits-only registration to $45 per person.

Exhibits-only registration includes full access to the Ideas Showcase, as well as the confer-ence’s exhibit floor, lunch, and admission to the Chr. Hansen Championship Cheese Auction evening reception.

For the exhibits-only discount, register online at www.cheesec-onference.org and enter the dis-count code CM45 on the payment screen.

W o r l d ' s DairyI W S l y CHEESE REPORTER 31, 2017 Section 1.pdf · with organizations that...

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