How long can a person hold their breath?
Google says the average is only two minutes but that must be wrong because Hubs and I have been holding our breath for a couple of days now.
We are holding our breath waiting for the call that others have received telling them that the milk their farm produces doesn’t have a home and has to be dumped. If and how they will be paid still seems unclear. This is insult on top of injury for all of us as we watch the price we will be paid for our milk going forward plummet.
Like many of you reading this at first I couldn’t understand how it’s possible that some stores have empty dairy aisles, some stores are limiting how much milk you can buy and worst of all, some are going without and there is milk being wasted. But after talking to a few friends and thinking it through, I understand what is happening more and I wanted to turn around and explain it to you.
First, you need to know that during normal times a huge chunk of overall dairy consumption happens in schools and restaurants. Around 7% of all fluid milk is consumed at school. Think about how much sour cream a Mexican restaurant, cheese a pizza place or milk a local coffee shop goes through. While schools and restaurants are still feeding people, it’s nowhere near the levels it was when life was normal.
The switch from food service to retail
When a restaurant orders their sour cream, they order it pounds. When we buy sour cream at the store, we buy it by the tub. The sour cream plant has separate manufacturing lines for bulk and for tubs. With the pandemic suddenly there is very little call for bulk sour cream, they can’t keep tubs in stock at your local grocery store. So the plant stops making bulk sour cream because no one is buying it, they don’t have the extra storage room for it and they focus on producing tubs. The production lines that package bulk sour cream can’t just switch to making tubs because that’s not what they were designed to do. The plant switches their focus to stocking store shelves and they make all the tubs of sour cream they can, as fast as they can until they run out of the actual plastic tubs and have to wait for the manufacturer to get them more. But the manufacturer is running slower than normal because their staff is reduced because moms and dads are having to stay home to care for their kids. This change in what the sour cream plant produces means the plant can’t take in as much cream as it did before.
Meanwhile, the milk bottling plants are in the same boat. The stores are calling for more milk because the shelves are bare. The plant has lines that produce the gallons and half gallons people buy at the store, as well as lines that produce the little cardboard pints that go to schools. They can produce enough school milk on those lines in one day to supply the current reduced orders so the other six days of the week those lines sit still while all hands are on deck producing milk in jugs to refill store shelves for you.
Then you have the trucking. The delivery trucks start running as fast as they can to deliver to stores and the bigger distribution centers. But it’s not just the dairy delivery trucks doing this, it’s all the products that people are buying that need replacing showing up. But there’s only so many loading docks and workers to unload the product so trucks wait in line and it takes longer.
There are bottlenecks everywhere. It takes time to switch our plants to produce what is needed when it changes in such a drastic way. When you factor in that there are fewer people working because they have to stay home with their kids, those who are self quarantining because they have been exposed to the virus or are immune-compromised and can’t risk getting sick, the change is even slower.
Grocery store panic buying-
Then we have grocery stores. Most are used to panic buying when a snowstorm is forecasted, but the panic buying that happened made blizzard buying look like a blip on the radar. The dairy cases were cleared out because of everything I mentioned before and they had very angry customers in their ear about not being able to buy milk. So when the next delivery truck arrived, they put a limit on how many gallons you could buy. They knew it would be a problem for families that went through more milk than the limit, but decided it was better for families to not have all they wanted than for some to have none.
We all know that milk is perishable and has to be refrigerated. But did you know that when you buy a gallon of milk at the store it’s so fresh that it was likely picked up from the farm just 48 hours ago? This comes into play because plants simply don’t have the capacity to store massive amounts of milk or dairy products. Our dairy plants are designed to turn milk into the dairy products we love as efficiently as possible and simply can’t just store the extra milk that is out there.
Another big piece that is causing a backup in moving dairy products is that our dairy products are sold around the world, and right now those products that would be headed to China or Mexico aren’t going anywhere and they are taking up the limited storage space we have.
Why dump milk instead of donating it?
Why are farmers dumping milk instead of donating it to those in need? You can’t exactly drive the milk truck straight off the farm around neighborhoods and tell people to bring out their mason jars and fill ‘er up. Milk is minimally processed but is still processed. When milk comes into the plant it is tested for quality and safety. Fat levels are adjusted, it is pasteurized and homogenized and fortified with vitamins A and D and then bottled. As I explained above, those plants are already running at 100%, there simply isn’t the room to bring more milk into the plant to bottle it to be donated.
What is happening to fix this?
That being said, dairy leadership is working together to ask our government to buy the products we do have in storage to supply food banks. They are also working with stores to remove limits on dairy products. If you want to help those in need to get dairy products, visit givedairy.com to make a donation to Second Harvest Food Bank of Southern Wisconsin or donate HERE if you want to donate in your area. The programs we have in place in our dairy industry are busy working to make sure schools can get coolers and other items needed to better manage dairy products for the change in how kids are getting food (you can learn more and make a donation to that cause HERE). But those things aren’t immediate and doesn’t help the farmers today that are pulling the plug on their tanks and watching their milk go down the drain.
We have a perfect storm on our hands that no one could have imagined. As dairy farmers, our whole mission is to feed families like yours. No one wants to see milk being dumped down the drain. Everyone is scrambling to fix this problem. Meanwhile, we keep holding our breath, praying that we don’t get that call to dump our milk because at this historic moment that’s all we can do.
Did you know you can freeze milk. You just have to remove a little from the plastic jug so it can expand, let it freeze then thaw it in the refrig. shake it well before you use it because it will seporate a bit.
Why don’t people just buy it raw, heat it, (pasteurize) then consume?
The logistics of this still doesn’t work out. How are people to get the raw milk? We are talking amounts far bigger than what is easily distributed.
How did the amount increase so suddenly where creameries can’t process it now, where for the last 12 months they could easily process that volume?
I believe it’s against the law. Or a special license is needed. I’m not sure but the machines may not be set up to put raw into small sanitized containers. Although I do believe raw milk has better nutrition value.
It is where I live, Illegal. Otherwise I probably would.
Empty plant here in Alexandria that used to be Carnation. They had driers for milk powder. If this one can’t do it, is there unused capacity somewhere that could dry milk, even if only for
pet food if it not for human consumption?
Any place with workers and capacity is taking on as much milk as possible, including drying plants.
Why were the creameries able to process X amount of milk a week or a month ago and now they can’t? Did the cows all start produce 2x the amount?
Unlikely.
The same creameries could be packaging the product and moving more over to powdered or cheese at this time.
As I explained in the post, storage is an issue as is worker shortages.
Use the excess milk as a foliar spray for the pastures. Milk, combined with molasses is an amazing fertilizer for grazing land. The soil biology will increase and the calcium will feed the grass.
This is how we get ants.
thanks for a great overview… from a farmer in California…
How did creameries suddenly run out of workers at a time unemployment shot up by millions?
Also, why are the creameries not working to produce other goods like cheese or butter during this time. Many creameries for years had the ability to produce multiple items.
Why are creameries not pivoting to the change in the industry due to this epidemic?
Also, how is the farmers being compensated for the dumped milk? Are only certain farmers being told to dump and not receive payment?
All of those questions were answered in the article.
No. They were not answered.
Nothing was said about a mysterious lack of employees while unemployment skyrockets.
Nothing was said about the inability to switch fluid milk to stored milk.
Also, nothing has been said about why school size milk cartons are not being donated since schools are no longer using them? These cartons would be great for foodshelves.
Instead of these donations being facilitated by the coops and creameries which in many cases are coops of the farmers, they are dumping raw product.
Meanwhile in major cities, stores are limiting purchases of milk to one or two gallons.
It makes no sense.
Also, there was no answer on if farmers are still being paid for dumped product or if it’s being paid based on some formula.
All that is being asked for is a government solution while the coops and creameries act inflexible pushing it down on the farmer.
Other than those points, the article answered all the questions.
Because you can’t instantly hire new people. They need training and other processes…all that takes time and money for people that will likely be temporary. Plus, the people needing jobs aren’t necessarily in the same places as the places needing workers. A bunch of unemployed people in a city doesn’t necessarily help a dairy. Plus, you’ve got the dairy lacking people, and the bottle manufacturing plant lacking people, and the trucking companies lacking people. It’s an issue along the whole supply chain, not just one location.
Cheese and butter making are also processes that take time. They aren’t “next day” things. And again, if you don’t have people, ramping up production takes time, money, and people. Just like transitioning to individual scale from bulk scale.
Most people don’t want the little containers of milk. Sure, at a food pantry they can’t get picky. But, many people needed products from the food banks also are going to have limited transportation options and storage options. Where they might be able to carry and store 1 gallon of milk. That suddenly gets much harder when you are having to deal with 16 half pints.
And, they can’t answer if farmers are getting paid, because honestly at this time farmers don’t know if they are getting paid (which was mentioned in the article).
Basically…the last question was answered, because there is no answer yet. And the first three things were answered, they just require a little thought rather than being completely spoon-fed the answer. This post brought the spoon to your mouth and you are complaining about having to open it.
I’m a cheese maker +26 years. This week is a 72 hour work week for me. We are using all we possibly can.
Most schools that I know of are still supplying kids with school lunches and some with breakfast too, at least they are in Illinois and a few other states. Some are doing it daily while others are sending food home weekly. Still though it’s not what it used to be and now it’s mostly low income families getting it.
They ran out of workers because much of the workforce is unavailable:
if sick, they’re at home isolated.
If exposed to someone who is/might be sick, they’re at home quarantined.
If they’re kids are home from school, they’re home taking care of them. Can you see how that creates a shortage?
Even essential industries like dairy are struggling.
As the article states, a major reason for stalled production is that huge customer bases (schools and restaurants) suddenly have no, or majorly decreased demand.
( remember high school economics?) Sure there’s supply. But with nowhere for a lot of it to go, and more milk coming every day ( even a *goat* can rapidly overflow multiple refrigerators if it produces more than your family can drink. Trust me.)
It’s building up a surplus that exceeds production ability.
Even if one plant decided to store their surplus, they’d fill up the freezers and then have to dump it anyway.
As for switching from producing one dairy product to another, it often just isn’t that simple.
If you’ve ever seen a “how it’s made” video, you know that factory assembly lines are designed to do *one* thing, and one thing only.
I hate waste as much as the next person.
But when you lose customers overnight, it takes longer to fix the problem than we wish.
Thank you so much for explaining all this to me your article was very informative!
Thank you for a thoughtful and well researched explanation!
Our schools are still feeding their students. I’m sure they are still using pints of milk in the bag lunches. I don’t understand why you would stop producing them. I’m sure my state isn’t the only state still feeding their students and needing milk.
They are still producing them, but it only takes a short amount of time to produce the amount needed because even though schools are still feeding kids, they aren’t feeding nearly as many as they were.
I love how many people did not understand the words you wrote, and are helpfully suggesting people consider all the things you’ve already explained. ♀️
Yeah, that’s my favorite part too. ♀️
I work for a food store. I am low level, so I do not know the particulars of the arrangement we have with https://www.organixrecycling.com/ I know we have dumpster sized bins filled with unsold milk, bread, produce that they pick up and use as animal feed. As distressing as that would be to do with unwanted milk, would it be better than dumping it down the drain?
I don’t know exactly what that company does but the amount of milk being dumped makes feeding it back to other animals a not very practical option.
You are correct. Unfortunately, the best option: to find a way to quickly get back to normal consumption is out of reach. The next best option is what everyone is trying. I present this only as last resort, as impractical as it is. Thank you for allowing that comment and this one. Hopefully someone brighter than me comes up with a solution both immediate, practical, and simple, 🙂
I agree the government should buy surplus milk. Distribute it to food banks etc. People are going hungry or can’t afford to buy food. Process milk into cheese,butter,powder milk
As an ex-dairy farmer from Vermont, I appreciate your explanation. Very informative. Unfortunately, it is hard to plan for situations like this and it’s very difficult at the beginning of the pipeline; namely, you farmers putting up the good fight. Hang in there!
I’m not clear on why they can’t sell the little milks that would go to schools to stores that have empty shelves. Surely people would be happy to get those rather than nothing?
The employees, space, trucks ect that they do have are dedicated to getting store shelves restocked as quickly as possible vs making school milks.
That makes no sense. So the trucks that drove milk cartons to school disappeared? Or did those cartons fly to schools? Why not drop those cartons off a foodshelves rather than ask for more donations or government to step in? Grocery stores have limits now on how much milk can be purchased.
Retailers can’t get enough milk. Farmers have too much milk.
Only cooperatives / creameries stand in between.
There have been plenty of trucks hauling milk to handle supply 2 months ago and the dairy industry since then didn’t suddenly start producing 50% more product. It’s the same amount of product being produced, just with creameries deciding they “no matter what” can’t move the school product to donation sites or retailers.
I will try smaller words and maybe you will understand.
The trucks that were hauling school milk are still there. They are hauling gallons of milk trying to restock stores because people were and still are panic buying. It is taking longer to do so because they have to wait in longer lines. Plus there are drivers who are not working because they have to care for kids or because they have underlying health issues that put them at risk.
And school milk is only a piece of all of this. Cheesemakers and other dairy manufacturers are unable to take on more milk because they have no place to go with the end product because food service accounts aren’t ordering.
Frankly I’m not sure that arguing with you is the most productive use of my time. You can’t seem to grasp the basics.
The process of getting a product on a store shelf also takes time and paperwork. The containers barcode needs to be approved into whatever pricing system a store uses. Some local markets might be able to make this process quick, but a larger Meijer or Wal-Mart store, I would guess, takes no less than 30 days. Companies also pay for shelf space, high or low shelving, how many rows… products don’t just randomly show up at the back door.
What if the plants did not stop bulk production of dairy products? What if from now on we just assume people WILL panic buy when restaurants/schools close, and just ship those bulk products to grocery stores as well as the normal retail packages? The people wanting to stock up would probably happily buy the bulkier items quickly so space in the stores shouldn’t be an issue at the beginning. While the panic buying is occurring the supply chain can decide when and how to shift as needed.
The staff and space and trucks that were dedicated to doing bulk are handling the increased retail production. Grocery stores can’t really handle 50lbs blocks of cheddar and while I know people love cheese, I don’t think they are going to buy up 50lbs blocks of cheddar either.
Oh I’d LOVE a 50 lb block of sharp cheddar….having the space to adequately store such a thing (hey I’m storing 25 lbs in block cheese now), that’s another matter altogether. Course I could get it home, cut it up myself, and then store it….it could be an option.
Hi,
I’m a dairy farmer from north Italy.
We’re living the same situation here. When the quarantine has been setted we have lost almost the 15% of our market from the evening to the morning and the price dropped almost 10%.
The worst side of this is that we can’t travel to find (al least try) a new market and the quarantine seems that will last for more that a month again.
Futhermore grain price increased 20-25% and we’re facing a severe drought that’s threating the production of the forage for our cows.
Hope for the future.
Sincerely
Daniele
I am so sorry to hear that. My husband and I visited northern Italy and stayed at a dairy near Mantua 6 years ago. It was incredible to see how so many things are the same and so many things are different between there and here. I pray that you have some rain soon.
Thank you, Carrie for a great article, well-explained.
It clearly is a complicated problem, with many variables, which no one would have thought would all happen at once. You have great patience with those that seem confused here.
Thanks for describing the bizarre system we are seeing right now (and trying to understand). ❣️
Hi Carrie, I work with Don Schindler at DMI and want to thank you for your thoughtful explanation of this complex subject! I shared on my personal channels and received this nice email from my aunt … it’s all thanks to you so thought I’d share. Hang in there and thank you for what you do!
” … I saw your post on FB about the dairy industry and you posted a link FYI for those interested.
I want to tell you that was a most informative article!!! I had wondered how we could be out of product that I knew was being produced. You answered the question. It was absolutely enlightening to think about the fact that it is ALL in THE DISTRIBUTION. Wow (at least for me). Shows you that conversation and social interaction has impacted our lives.
Actually, I really did find the article interesting and am so glad you posted to solve the mystery. Look forward to seeing you in person soon.
Thank you so much for sharing this with me Jennifer!
Carrie,
Please don’t waste your time on Face the FactsMN. He doesn’t want to understand and has no basic concepts of how manufacturing and distribution works.
I appreciate you taking the time to explain. Derrick Josie, TDF Honest Farming, shared a good video about the situation.
It comes down to supply chains and how the need to be nimbler to adjust to change quicker.
Of course, this is all uncharted territory and the majority of people are doing the best they can.
Thank you for explaining.
I think it should be made into cheese or dehydrated to powder milk.
They are making cheese and powder as quickly as they can.
Dawn, where do you suggest they store it once they do that. If their storage isn’t full already it would be in a big hurry, then what? Also cheese takes time and space to make…they have to make it, then it goes in a building to age it…when that building is full, then what? I’ll agree it is easier to store dehydrated milk…it probably could be shipped out to a warehouse somewhere…and when that warehouse is full?
Why don’t the dairy farmers make a deal with the pig farmers and/or feedlots and take the milk to them instead of dumping it? Seems like it would be a better deal for everyone!
There needs to be equipment and means in place to handle feeding milk. Plus it would need to be balanced in the ration.
I think the bottom line is if they don’t get paid for it they dump it this is not an equipment problem this is a problem of will and without payment nobody will move the milk further than to dump it. Its the same reason people are starving all over the planet as we dump grain, milk, vegetables … there is no will to move the product without the monetary reward
From what I have heard and seen, it’s logistic bottlenecks more than anything.
I don’t think most people understand the complexity of changing how things are now done.
Processing milk into powdered form or cheese is not something that is done in a week or a month.
Factories must be fitted for use. Property must be purchased. Machines must be designed and installed. Packaging machines must be retooled. Distribution needs to be mapped out.
Infrastructure doesn’t just materialize.
Add to that the fact that milk is extremely perishable and doesn’t wait around for us to cobble together these things makes it unobtainable at the moment.
Our problems will not be over anytime soon. Better get used to it.
And with no pay, farmers can’t pay their employees to harvest said vegetables, so they rot in the fields. If you grew produce and then had to watch it go to waste, you wouldn’t think this it taken lightly.
In some places, food banks are buying at discount excess fruits and veggies that now have no market. But even that’s not a perfect solution, b/c the farmers make no money on that venture.
(they need to earn a living too, it’s not a cash hungry thing at all)
It’s an ok compromise: at least that little bit went to feed people, and the paltry income allows producers to keep their employees on payroll.
The farmers are dumping it into there shit pits. And putting back onto the land as a soil amendment…. they are dumping on a rotation…
Thank you for a clear explanation that answers the questions that I and so many other consumers have been asking! It’s easy to see things only from our own point of view without understanding what goes on behind the scenes.
I get the part about production plants not being able to re-configure quickly in time to accommodate the shift in demand. I also get the part about the deliveries now being more complicated because the wait times for unloading dairy trucks are longer, etc.
What I don’t get is this:
All these students don’t vanish into thin air just because their schools are closed. They still need to eat dairy products and eat milk. All the workers eating in restaurants still have to eat when at home. There’s only so long one can sustain themselves on sardines and baked beans before needing more variety in diet. Is it that people just consume a lot more dairy products when in school or dining in restaurants, or is it that the product chains are so specialized that the workforce cannot be easily replaced & trained even for temporary periods? You’d think that for every Mom and Dad who cannot work due to kids being at home, you could potentially train a few high school or college students to do the work in the meantime. Given a supply of young & healthy workers, what sort of timeframe would be needed to train them to work on dairy farms/creameries/processing plants? Weeks? Months? Years?
I understand this is probably complex, but it feels like there are far more cogs to this supply/demand machinery than just schools & restaurants not ordering what needs to be ordered. I get it that it’s a big part of this, but it feels like there’s so much more to it.
You’re right about it being more complex, but this explanation works really well for a general understanding. Schools are not feeding as many students because not all students are getting their meals from the school anymore – many are eating meals prepared at home with their families. Also, for many kids, school was where they got their dairy.
When it comes to training workers, it’s important to remember that 1. everyone is being told to stay home so now is not the time to be starting a new job, especially since healthy young people are the most likely to spread the virus without knowing it (asymptomatic) and 2. high school and college students are still completing classes online.
Stop limiting amount you can buy at the store its a crime in my opinion. I own a large dairy in California . There is plenty of milk for everyone stores limiting it just cause panic an then you get empty shelves. This is in my opinion a gross injustice. Please urge your state department of agriculture to stop stores from limiting milk. I truly feel its a crime it manipulates our market an If it were a gas station limiting gas you bet they would be stopped
Food shelves have storage issues too. I volunteer at my local food shelf. We no longer serve breakfast to our people (Friday mornings 8-10 AM) because of social distancing. We do send food home to children who may need food over the weekend. Otherwise, the school is sending home meals to their students, via the bus drivers. Every student is eligible to receive food deliveries, even the high school students. Just leave your cooler at the bus stop and food will be left in it. So many people in our community have donated money, food, plant starts, and even sour dough starter to our food shelf. We have enough 1/2 gallon containers of milk donated (as always) every week that we don’t need the small containers. As for the person who cannot understand Carrie’s write-up…”don’t confuse me with the facts, my mind is already made up.”
You seem to be blaming a lot of this on the fact that kids aren’t in school. Do you not realize that school is out during the summer? (And yet that doesn’t seem have an affect on production.) Production is down due to workers being out due to Covid. My wife is the HR manager for a plastic molding company with over 600 employees. She only had 3 employees take off work for their kids, and they were all back to work within 1-1/2 weeks. In the other hand, she’s had dozens out because of covid. And if they actually had a case of covid in the plant they would have shut down temporary (because employers are on the hook (OSHA and medical bills) for an employee who catches covid at work. (Except meat packing plants, Trump’s executive order exempts them from all liability)).
I’m not sure you read my post.