Friday, May 7, 2021
CapitalPress.com 11
Dairy
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Dairy processors share lessons learned in pandemic
with product that wasn’t meant to
be held, and what are we going to
do with this milk?” he said.
Processors pivoted and did
things they hadn’t done before
such as freezing mozzarella in bulk
and shifting to products that could
be cured instead of held as fresh
cheeses, he said.
“They switched their make pro-
cedures. They switched their prod-
uct mix. And they looked for new
markets,” he said.
Some cheese makers found new
markets in retail and the frozen
pizza industry.
“So that ability to pivot in the
marketplace was another early fi nd-
ing. And what struck me as I look
back on last year is how quickly
these things happened,” he said.
By CAROL RYAN DUMAS
Capital Press
Dairy producers dumping milk
in the spring of 2020 in the early
days of the pandemic made head-
lines across the country. But dairy
processors also had their share
of challenges, which they say
continue.
“That fi rst month, really late
March and into April was a time
of complete upheaval in the mar-
kets,” said John Umhoefer, exec-
utive director of the Wisconsin
Cheese Makers Association.
Foodservice sales dropped off
right away, and cheese processors
were getting phone calls from dis-
tributors saying they weren’t tak-
ing any product, he said during the
Associated Press File
Wheels of cheese age at the
Emmi Roth USA production
plant in Monroe, Wis. Processors
describe the pandemic as “prob-
lem whack-a-mole.”
latest “DairyLivestream” webinar.
“Product backed up immedi-
ately last spring in the dairy indus-
try. And so the fi rst learning people
had was what are we going to do
GF 102 / 1002 SERIES
Global dairy market
demands sustainability
By CAROL RYAN DUMAS
Capital Press
The U.S. Dairy Export
Council works for dairy
farmers and the dairy indus-
try to open markets for U.S.
dairy products worldwide.
But it’s not just about mar-
ket access, it’s also about
reputation.
With today’s focus on
sustainability, that narrative
has to include U.S. dairy’s
environmental stewardship
goals.
A lot of folks around the
world, and sometimes even
in the U.S., have a dated
image of dairy, said Krista
Harden, president and CEO
of the U.S. Dairy Export
Council.
“They don’t see that
modern farmer today, that
commitment to technol-
ogy, that one who makes
investment in science and
is making changes on their
farms every day to make
sure they’re more produc-
tive, but they’re also more
effi cient,” she said during
the latest “Dairy Defi ned”
podcast.
Those
farmers
are
also caring about natural
resources, water use, where
their feed comes from —
all the diff erent elements of
a farm, she said.
“So, I really think that
part of what we’ve got to
do is make sure that we’re
a little more transparent.
We talk about what we do.
We talk about what we don’t
know,” she said.
Admitting that U.S. dairy
doesn’t
have all the
answers can
be a hard
thing to do,
and it can
make farm-
Krysta
ers feel vul-
Harden
nerable, she
said.
“We have to say, ‘we
don’t have all the answers
today, but we’re committed
to fi nding them’ and that we
are going to fi nd them. We
are going to work to make
sure that we do,” she said.
“That’s the story I want
to make sure that the rest of
the world understands, and
sees U.S. dairy as a leader
when it comes to sustain-
ability,” she said.
Throughout the chain,
the U.S. dairy industry is
committed to this set of
goals and has the opportu-
nity to be able to do that,
she said.
“We are productive, we
are effi cient, we are an eff ec-
tive partner. That’s what
we’ve got to continue to
tell and to help us really
explain to our custom-
ers and to consumers,” she
said.
The stated goal of the
United Nations Food Sys-
tems Summit is to radically
change how food is pro-
duced, processed and con-
sumed, she said.
That should make peo-
ple wake up and think “we
better be involved and we
need to make sure that U.S.
dairy’s voice is heard and
understood,” she said.
Rising feed prices
squeeze dairy farmers
By LEE MIELKE
For the Capital Press
U
.S. dairy farmers are
feeling the squeeze.
Average feed
costs are up more than $5
per hundredweight com-
pared to a year ago, accord-
ing to the April 23 Dairy
and Food Market Analyst.
“A low-cost dairy farmer
that broke-even at $15 per
cwt milk in 2020 will now
need $20 to make money,”
the DFMA stated.
“That means many milk
producers, especially those
that are buying spot feed
and are receiving a milk
price that is close to Class
IV, are deep in the red.”
Margin still slipping
A small rise in the all
milk price could not off set
sharply rising feed costs and
USDA’s latest Ag Prices
report shows the March
milk feed ratio at 1.75,
down from 1.78 in Febru-
ary, and compares to 2.24 in
March 2020.
The index is based on the
current milk price in rela-
tionship to feed prices for
a dairy ration consisting of
51% corn, 8% soybeans and
41% alfalfa hay.
In other words, one
pound of milk could only
purchase 1.75 pounds of
dairy feed of that blend in
March.
The U.S. All-Milk price
averaged $17.40 per hun-
Some cheese makers switched
from one cheese to another just
days after states and restaurants
started shutting down, he said.
The cheese distribution market
was also in chaos. Contracts went
from year-long and six months to
monthly, then biweekly and then
weekly, he said.
That shift is unprecedented, and
it’s continuing, he said. There’s
a tighter pipeline between milk
coming in and product going out,
and any disruption is magnifi ed.
“Just the slightest hiccup at
a good-sized cheese plant these
days can cause a ripple eff ect
across the entire milk shed,” he
said.
Bryan Weller, director of pro-
curement and sourcing for Agri-
Mark, described the last year as a
“problem whack-a-mole.”
The foodservice shutdown
halted demand for the coopera-
tive’s cultured products such as
sour cream, which has no shelf life
and can’t be frozen or aged.
“Luckily we’ve got a balance
between foodservice and retail, but
there were certain lines we had to
shutter,” he said.
There just wasn’t demand for
products such as 10-pound loaves
of cheese. In addition, the pan-
demic brought a forecast roller
coaster, he said.
After the holidays, February
and March are kind of tumbleweed
months for 8 ounce bars of cheese.
But the pandemic brought a second
Christmas demand, he said.
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Dairy
Markets
Lee Mielke
dredweight, up 30 cents
from February but 50 cents
below the March 2020
average.
California’s All Milk
price slipped to $17.10,
down 70 cents from Feb-
ruary and 20 cents below
a year ago. Wisconsin’s,
at $17.50, was up 30 cents
from February but 60 cents
below a year ago.
The national aver-
age corn price hit $4.89
per bushel, up 14 cents
per bushel from February,
which followed a 51-cent
rise the month before, and
was priced $1.21 per bushel
above March 2020.
Soybeans averaged
$13.20 per bushel, up 50
cents per bushel from Feb-
ruary, which followed a
$1.80 rise from January.
The March soybean price
was priced $4.73 per bushel
above March 2020.
Alfalfa hay climbed
higher as well, averaging
$181 per ton, up $6 from
February and $9 above a
year ago.
The March cull price for
beef and dairy combined
averaged $67.10 per cwt.,
up $1.50 from February, 40
cents below March 2020, and
$4.50 below the 2011 base
average of $71.60 per cwt.
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S239628-1