Monthly Archives: September 2019

DMI’s innovation = secret projects with strategic partners

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By Sherry Bunting, Farmshine, Friday, Sept. 13, 2019

CHICAGO, Ill. – ‘Proprietary’ describes much of what the Innovation Center for U.S. Dairy initiates as a checkoff-funded industry collaboration under the umbrella of Dairy Management Inc. (DMI).

Some of that work is so proprietary, even the 81 voting DMI board members don’t see details as they vote to approve partnerships, new product developments, promotion grants to launch new products, as well as the ‘sustainability’ initiatives and alliances that come from this collaboration and filter down as requirements for all dairy farms through their respective processor and cooperative milk buyers via the FARM program.

Board members are quick to point out that USDA and DMI attorneys are privy to proprietary details that are kept confidential. They point out that food industry partners and processors must show they are investing more than they are receiving, and that their “innovation” has potential to be a ‘catalyst’ for others to follow.

DMI describes program accomplishments in the IRS 990 form, specifying that, “DMI partners with foodservice industry leaders to help create dairy-based innovation to drive dairy sales and build trust in dairy products.”

The description details the way partnerships are boosting dairy use, especially cheese, by restaurant chains.

At the same time, DMI describes its strategy to revitalize fluid milk by ‘reinventing the consumer milk experience.’ (Reinventing milk was examined in a separate article in the August 23 edition of Farmshine.)

The Innovation Center for U.S. Dairy (under the official tax-exempt name of “Dairy Center for Strategic Innovation and Collaboration, doing business as Innovation Center for U.S. Dairy”) fuels these partnerships with mandatory checkoff funds and is the place where these partnerships are born from the board of DMI staff and processor / co-op chairs and CEOs. (See related article).

Here, we examine the mainly cheesey partnerships DMI has pursued since 2009-10. That is the year in which the Innovation Center for U.S. Dairy was formed under DMI.

In 2017, (DMI) had four domestic, U.S.-focused partners: Dominos, Pizza Hut, Taco Bell and McDonalds. Based upon the success of our U.S. partnerships with Yum! Brands, which includes Taco Bell, Pizza Hut and KFC, we expanded our partnership focus and added two pilot international partnerships in 2017 — KFC, focused on Latin America and Pizza Hut, focused on Southeast Asia.

“The goal of the international partnerships is to increase U.S. Dairy Exports to these markets,” the DMI 990 form states. “DMI partners with these large catalytic companies because they are industry leaders who have the potential to deliver incremental and sustainable dairy sales. Moreover, these partners are closely watched by others in foodservice. Their innovation, whether product-based or technology based, created a catalytic effect, where others follow their actions. These partners were chosen because they commit to invest in innovation and marketing in support of dairy-based products: and they are willing to partner on other dairy industry priorities.”

According to the report, DMI supports a range of programs and initiatives with these influential and global foodservice industry leaders. The programs focus on providing dairy expertise and investment in the areas of consumer insights, new product development, new store and new technology testing, consumer communications and corporate social responsibility. Further, DMI provides on-site scientists and/or culinary experts who lead product development of dairy-based food and beverage products.

The main agencies of DMI handling these proprietary partnerships are the Innovation Center for U.S. Dairy and the U.S. Dairy Export Council (USDEC), which are both listed under the control of DMI on the form and are both under the leadership of former Secretary of Agriculture Tom Vilsack.

DMI also “provides expertise and consultants in the areas of marketing, consumer insights and research, nutrition, sustainability, animal care, food safety, regulatory environment and dairy communications.”

As a signal of success, DMI states that dairy is represented in 70% of their collective menu items among these partners and that these partners spent $11.1 billion between 2012 and 2017, collectively, on advertising their menus, including items that are “dairy-based” like pizza, tacos, ice cream and coffee drinks. But there is no data on how much of the total $11.1 billion was spent on actually advertising the dairy-based menu items.

DMI states that since these partnerships began in 2009, the combined milk equivalent tonnage of these partners, collectively, “has grown by 2.2 billion milk pounds, averaging 4% growth per year (since 2009).”

This is close to the overall global trend of 3% growth in cheese consumption annually.

In the 990 discussion, specific menu items are noted as examples, as well as how ice cream and cheese are reformulated by in-house experts provided by DMI.

Working with Domino’s, DMI helped “create the ‘Smart Slice’ School Pizza, which was in more than 10,500 schools by 2017 and meets the USDA dietary guidelines for being fat-free or lower in fat than regular cheese pizza.”

Also in 2017, Dominos began promoting awareness of the Undeniably Dairy campaign by including “farmer messaging” on 7 million pizza boxes weekly nationwide. DMI states that this “helped Dominos grow milk equivalent tonnage by 8.5% in 2017.”

DMI also partnered with Pizza Hut on the “cheese in more places” products, including the Ultimate Cheesy Crust Pizza with 16 pockets stuffed with nearly one pound of cheese.

As for Taco Bell, DMI states that this partnership has helped the restaurant chain evolve in how they use dairy, from incorporating it as a garnish to being more of a key ingredient …growing their milk equivalent tonnage by 7% in 2017.

However, partners like Taco Bell have also initiated “stealth health” menu-boarding since 2017, to encourage customers to consider condiments other than cheese and sour cream, such as salsa and pico de gala. And partner McDonald’s removed the ‘cheeseburger’ option from the Happy Meal menu last year. A customer can ask for a slice of cheese on the burger, but that option does not appear on the menu board. It’s called “stealth health.”

As for the international partnerships, DMI states that U.S. cheese sales at Pizza Hut Asia Pacific increased 29% in 2017. In fact, DMI leaders communicate that consumers in China, for example, look to the U.S. with confidence in food safety. They say their market research shows that the larger and more technologically progressive our farms are here, the happier moms are to buy U.S. dairy there. In fact, dairy checkoff leaders note in communications that small farms with older facilities conger-up images of concern for consumers in China who have not forgotten their 2014 melamine scare, which the Chinese government ultimately blamed on milk handlers for the network of small farms in China.

While cheese sales increased through these partnerships from 2009 through 2017, according to DMI, fluid milk sales declined even faster in those years than the 30-year trendline

Global supply chain structures also became more prominent as multi-national dairy ingredient suppliers connect with DMI partner-brands.

On the fluid milk side, DMI’s stated goal is to “reinvent the milk experience for consumers.” At the same time, the overall goals are focused on dairy innovation via business plans and structures that are more global in nature, focus on foodservice chains that represent domestic and overseas markets and utilize further processed, reformulated, and blended dairy ingredients while also creating menu items that use these proprietary ingredients to fit USDA’s low-fat dietary guidelines as the restaurant trade moves into ‘stealth health’ mode.

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Community supports family as surreal arrest adds to barn fire’s burden

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The fire marshal has not determined the cause of the fire, which appears to have started in this second story of the 1800’s bank barn.  Photo courtesy Renee Troutman

Author’s Note: Since this story appeared in Farmshine Sept. 13, the petition to drop charges against Tim Getz has grown to over 36,000 signatures and counting.

By Sherry Bunting, Farmshine Sept. 13, 2019

MYERSTOWN, Pa. —  For Marlin and Gloria Getz and their sons Todd and Tim, of Myerstown, Lebanon County, Pennsylvania, the events of the barn fire Wednesday evening, Sept. 4 are a blur that took a turn no one could have expected. Amid the heartbreak of loss, the cleanup, decision-making, and now legal concerns, it is the support of their community that is holding them up.

While part of the basement and the tiestalls are still standing, the rest of the two-story bank barn, and all of the feed, are a complete loss.

Of the cattle, 22 head perished in the fire, including 12 cows, 8 yearling heifers and 2 calves, with an additional cow euthanized from injuries the following day. The Getz family is milking their 45 remaining cows in nearby Schaefferstown where John Zimmerman, offered his now vacant barn while the family decides their future.

And then there is the legal concern facing Tim Getz, who was clobbered, handcuffed and arrested as he worked with his father, brother and others to rescue cows in their smoke-filled barn as the hay mow above them was burning.

A Pennsylvania State Police Trooper arrived just ahead of the firefighters, demanding they all leave the barn. He did not comprehend the dedication and knowledge of a family trying to save their cattle when they ignored him and he grabbed Tim from behind, resulting in a flailing throw of the arm interpreted by the officer as assault and leading to felony charges of assault on a police officer.

By the next morning, Carrie Boyer of Lebanon had started a petition online, now filled with 9,443 signatures and growing. 32 pages showing the first 8000 signatures were presented to Lebanon County District Attorney David Arnold on Tuesday, requesting the charges be dropped. It will be days before they learn the outcome, and a preliminary hearing has been set for October 3.

Neighbor Anna Furlow, 15, also wanted to help. She saw the fire trucks go by that night on the road that adjoins her family’s property and the farm. She started a Go Fund Me site, with a goal to raise $10,000 in donations for the family. So far $3,125 has been raised, and the link for donations can be found here.

“I have known the family my whole life, and they have always been really kind to me and my family, so I wanted to do something kind for them,” the teenager said. “They are just really good people, and now they have the financial concerns and decisions about the future.”

Anna and her mother Kristy report that many people from the community are helping out and bringing plenty of food.

“We are holding up,” says Todd Getz in a Farmshine interview Tuesday. His brother Tim is home after a friend of the family raised the $15,000 to bail him out of jail. “It’s kind of hectic, and it is heartbreaking, but we have a lot of people helping us through.”

Todd reflected on the night of the fire. “We were milking in the barn, and at a few minutes before 8 p.m., I was going to go mix feed. I saw fire at the eaves and yelled to my brother that the barn was on fire. He noticed it the same time and called it in,” Todd recounts. 

“Everything became chaotic. I ran up back to see if there was something I could do to stop it and then came down and started letting cows out. I was at the near end of the barn and heard mom yelling that a police officer said we had to get out. The next thing I knew, the officer came in and told me to get out, but I kept working at untying cows until I got to the end of the row at the split and went out with him.”

Todd says he then re-entered the barn at the far end “because I knew my dad and brother were in there. The officer stood at the doorway yelling for us to get out, and so the cows we were trying to get out could not get out the doorway because he was standing there.”

Todd recalls his father yelling back to the officer that they weren’t leaving until they got the cows out. At this point, there was smoke but no fire where they were working.

“The officer walked past my dad and went to Tim, who ignored him and kept untying cows. The electric was out, it was getting dark, there was smoke. I don’t think Tim knew it was the policeman grabbing the back of his arm when he flailed his arm backward to break free. The next thing we knew, the officer took Tim down and put him in cuffs,” Todd reports, adding that there were three other people besides Tim at that end of the barn trying to get cows out and the firefighters were already working at the other end of the barn at that point.

In fact, for a few moments, Todd wasn’t sure who was being handcuffed. “I couldn’t see clearly to the front of the barn where they were. I thought they were arresting my dad.

“I want to be clear that we are not criticizing the trooper, it’s just that I don’t think he understood the situation. I think that is what it really comes down to. He didn’t understand. In fact, the area where he arrested Tim, that part of the barn, is still standing. The fire didn’t reach it.”

With his brother under arrest and the fire raging above them, family, firefighters, the herd veterinarian and others were still stepping in and out of the barn. “You could pick your way in, and the cows were still coming,” Todd recalls.

He says the firefighters were invaluable. One went back in the barn and cut every cow loose they hadn’t gotten to. “We have a pen of calves at Zimmerman’s right now that wouldn’t be there if not for the firefighters getting them away from that end of the barn.”

The family is grateful to their longtime veterinarian Dr. Gary Brummel of Lebanon.

“When I got there, most of the cattle were out,” says Brummel, who has been the herd vet for the Getz family’s Autumn-Mist Holsteins for over 20 years. “Within an hour, the fire chief had me come look at cows under the barn. We were able to get 8 to 10 more animals out, and there were still 4 trapped with the splits. I euthanized them. Others with burns and abrasions, I treated.”

It was an hour of looking at animals and euthanizing any trapped with severe injuries that were still in the part of the barn where Tim, an hour earlier, had been working to free cows before being arrested.

“When I finally went to Marlin and Gloria to let them know I was there, that’s when I learned what had happened with Tim,” said Brummel. “They asked me to go talk to Tim and the officer. One of the firefighters was with me, he knew where the squad car had been, but when we got there, the car was gone.”

Brummel notes the firefighters and ambulance crew didn’t know what happened or where they went. They got on central dispatch to talk to the officer and learned Tim was being taken to the Jonestown barracks and placed under arrest.

He was also taken to the hospital and treated but no one in his family was ever notified.

It was 12 hours later, the next morning, before the family learned that Tim had been taken to the hospital for the injury to his head where the officer hit him with the flashlight before placing him in handcuffs.

While the primary duty of a police officer is human safety, and that may mean telling people to leave a barn that is on fire, family, friends, professionals, and now the local community and dairy community at-large argue whether the officer had the right to physically try to remove one person, leaving four other individuals still in the burning barn doing what he was doing.

The family understands the officer thought he was doing the right thing, but the situation that transpired reveals a deep void in understanding when it comes to the handling of livestock.

When asked what can be learned from this situation, Brummel had some sage advice, “Have an emergency plan. Make sure fire extinguishers are charged and that you have multiple ones. Have an exit plan. Know how you will handle it if the unthinkable happens.”

And now this situation shows additional steps. Farmers and veterinarians should consider meeting and talking with local first responders and law enforcement to have some education and integration in the handling of livestock.

Brummel notes that as communities, including first responders, become farther removed from a farming background, efforts to integrate with first responders and law enforcement may be more important than ever, perhaps even designating a local first responder with livestock knowledge.

While one press report indicates the officer, Jorge DeJesus, may have been on the force less than a year, the majority of people interviewed for this report believe the main factor in this situation is the lack of understanding about farming and livestock. And while they appreciate that the officer was doing what he thought was right to save human lives, the lack of understanding for the situation has now presented a grave legal concern for the family.

What it boils down to is Tim Getz had not committed a crime. The officer had no warrant. This reporter can find no law on the books stating that an owner can’t be in his barn freeing cows during a barn fire.

By all accounts, Tim is keeping his chin up. He spent part of that night at the hospital, then at central booking at the Jonestown State Police barracks.  He was told he would get a phone call when he was transferred to jail but was bailed out before that occurred.

A police report indicates a trooper interviewed Getz at Jonestown barracks at 9:50 p.m. In the interview, without counsel or a phone call, Getz related that he heard the trooper yelling, felt him reach the back of his arm, and he reached back and struck out, but was not sure where or who he struck with an arm up over the shoulder.

The family has hired a criminal defense attorney.

The fire marshal has not determined the cause of the fire, which started in the second story of the bank barn.

The Getz’s have insurance and are sorting out their future with so many mitigating circumstances amid an already difficult time in the dairy business.

“We can’t answer questions about what we’re going to do until we get answers to the questions we have. Our priorities right now are taking care of the animals we have and deciding where we go from here,” says Todd. “We love the cows and love milking and would like to keep doing that, but there is the matter of can we?”

The farm has been in the family four generations, and Todd says it is difficult knowing that his brother is facing charges mainly because people don’t understand that these dairy cows are not just their heritage and livelihood, “they are an extension of our family.”

“People have really rallied around us, and it is amazing and humbling, what that means to our family,” says Todd. “The number of people who were here that night to get cows loaded to go to another barn and coming here after cleaning up. It’s humbling and means the world to us right now.

Despite the heartache, Todd says, “We have seen how big everybody’s heart is in these past few days.”

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While part of the basement and tiestalls are still standing, the rest of the two-story bank barn, and all of the feed, are a complete loss. Of the cattle, 22 head perished in the fire, including 12 cows, 8 yearling heifers and 2 calves. Photos courtesy Renee Troutman

DMI by the numbers, proprietary path of partners is paved

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By Sherry Bunting, Farmshine, August 30, 2019

CHICAGO, Ill. — As the path of dairy checkoff promotion continues to evolve — especially since 2008 when a series of memorandums of understanding were signed by Dairy Management Inc. (DMI) and the National Dairy Council (NDC) with then USDA Secretary Tom Vilsack — the money flows increasingly toward DMI partnerships, agency services and executive staff through sub-agencies of DMI that facilitate the proprietary partnerships.

Innovation Center for U.S. Dairy, U.S. Dairy Export Council, GENYOUth, Newtrient LLC, are a few of the vehicles for “proprietary” industry partnerships, which DMI refers to as ‘leveraging industry resources.’

In particular the Innovation Center, working closely with USDEC, is the vehicle for pre-competitive “proprietary” dairy innovations.

In fact, this innovation really began through a relationship between Fonterra USA and DMI as early as the 2006-08 time frame. Their respective ‘test kitchens’ are just three miles apart on the outskirts of Chicago, where milk proteins and ingredients, concentrators, extenders and utilization characteristics have been the focus of proprietary work.

As DMI CEO Tom Gallagher stated at a dairy conference in Wisconsin in March, food scientists from DMI have “cracked the code” on cheese-melting characteristics for partners like Taco Bell and Pizza Hut. He also talked about the new pizza cheese innovations with Dominos to meet USDA school lunch rules, calling them “wildly popular with students.”

From that March presentation at the Professional Dairy Producers of Wisconsin conference in Madison, the Wisconsin State Farmer quoted Gallagher summing up his job: “My job is real simple. I have to get the industry to do things with your product after it leaves the farm — that consumers want.”

Toward that end, Gallagher explained to the shift away from television ads and other “one-way” promotions to social media “conversations” and industry “partnerships.” It has shifted from promoting milk and dairy to providing product development specialists working for DMI’s partners — like McDonald’s, Dominos, Taco Bell and others — to get them to “do stuff” that puts more dairy in the fast-food pipeline (look for more on this in a future article).

A key driver of the shifting direction of checkoff promotion is the world renown Edelman company, with its headquarters in Chicago — 17 miles east of DMI’s offices and just two miles from the Chicago headquarters of Fairlife LLC, two miles from the Chicago offices of Coca-Cola and a mile and a half from PepsiCo’s Chicago offices.

According to Richard Edelman, in his May 2017 blog post at the company’s website, the Edelman company (known worldwide simply as Edelman) has been the public relations and communications firm for DMI for over 20 years. 

In this particular post, Richard Edelman writes about the launch of DMI’s Innovation Center for U.S. Dairy in 2008 and how he is looking forward to the leadership of the former USDA Secretary Tom Vilsack coming on board that year (2017) as president and CEO of checkoff-funded USDEC and Innovation Center for U.S. Dairy (after signing MOU’s with DMI while Secretary in 2008-09).

This Edelman blog post covers the launch of the Undeniably Dairy campaign that month (May 2017), calling it the first time Edelman has had a project “bringing together a fully integrated campaign at this scale.”

With offices worldwide and mergers throughout the advertising and public relations industry, Edelman is the world’s largest such firm and is open about their re-alignment of clientele around “social responsibility” and  “global environmental sustainability.” In fact, they’ve dropped clients with businesses not deemed “environmentally sustainable.”

Edelman and its clients — such as PepsiCo, Danone, Unilever and others — are listed as prime sponsors buying-in to the EAT Forums that are pushing the EAT Lancet report about the ideal global diet of cutting per-capita animal protein consumption – meat, dairy and eggs – by more than 75% over the next 10 years to “reduce the environmental impact of feeding 10 billion people.”

The firm was instrumental in setting up GENYOUth in 2008 and recommending CEO Alexis Glick as its coordinator. Not only are DMI and PepsiCo clients of Edelman, so is the National Football League. The NFL has a longstanding relationship with PepsiCo that predates the GENYOUth / Fuel Up to Play 60 alliance with dairy checkoff.

And, while PepsiCo is an Edelman client, Coca Cola is a headline client of Edelman’s spinoff Zeno Group, a global integrated communications agency founded 20 years ago by Richard Edelman’s father Daniel J. Edelman after Richard had taken over the reins of Edelman.

Edelman, fairlife (Coca Cola) and NFL Properties are the Top 3 Contractors paid by DMI in 2017, as shown on the IRS 990.

So what do the numbers tell us about the above-mentioned relationships?

According to the IRS 990 forms filed by DMI for tax-year 2017, the Daniel J. Edelman, Inc. company, mind-bending mastermind of “social marketing”, was paid $15.3 million in 2016 and $17.8 million in 2017 for “agency services.” That was 11.5% of DMI’s total budget of $155 million in 2017.

DMI paid NFL Properties LLC, New York, N.Y., $5.12 million in 2016 and $5.63 million in 2017 for “Promotion.” Is this the pay-to-play cost of the GENYOUth alliance and MOU? After all, the NFL is positioned as a partner with dairy farmers in the “dairy-farmer-initiated” GENYOUth. The NFL was in on the MOU signing with DMI and Tom Vilsack while he was Secretary of Agriculture.

But, while the NFL’s annual contributions to dairy checkoff’s GENYOUth are listed on GENYOUth IRS 990s as ranging from $370,000 in 2014 to $945,000 in 2017, DMI lists checkoff payments to NFL Properties of between $5 and $6 million for 2016 and 2017 on the DMI IRS 990.

It’s all about the kids, right? There’s more here than kids and breakfast carts.

Meanwhile, fluid milk sales continued to decline, even more rapidly over the 2008-18 decade as low-fat and fat-free school promotion and provision was dairy checkoff’s best play while the plant-based alternatives continue blitzing consumers with – you guessed it — television ads and “one-way” promotions that DMI says “don’t work.”

The alt-beverage industry has worked with Edelman client PepsiCo on its low-fat product portfolio through a variety of incubator projects involving plant-based alternatives for dairy products.

The alt-beverage industry is working closely with Edelman client Danone, which has set a goal to transition much of its yogurt market into plant-based alternatives over the next 5 to 10 years, opening the world’s largest plant-based yogurt facility in upstate Pennsylvania earlier this year.

The alt-beverage industry has even convinced the nation’s largest dairy-farmer-owned cooperative, DFA, to invest in alternative beverage production assets and to innovate with a DMI-checkoff-funded product innovation — a new blend of low-fat, lactose-free dairy milk combined with 50% almond or oat beverage that rolled out in Minnesota in August 2019, with sights set on the Northeast by 2020.

DMI is spending checkoff dollars in search of the next fairlife on which to hang dairy promotion’s hat.

Incidentally, Fairlife LLC received $8 million in DMI checkoff funds in 2017 for “promotion,” according to the most recent publicly-available IRS 990 documents.

So, what else can be learned from DMI’s IRS 990 returns in 2017?

For starters, they had $2 million fewer dollars to work with compared with 2016. Total revenue controlled by DMI was $155 million, along with the unified marketing plan that filters down through regional agencies spending the other half of the dairy farmer checkoff revenues that total right around $320 million. Some state dairy promotion order boards, like in New York, automatically give 25% of their budget (2.5 cents of the state’s dime) to DMI as a matter of course. For other boards, the pass-through may be more, or less.

Looking at program areas, the most recent IRS 990 for 2017 shows that $110 million of the $155 million in checkoff funds under direct management of DMI was described to the IRS as “program funding revenue,” $39.5 million as “core funding revenue” and $5.6 million as “contract services revenue.”

Of the total $155 million in revenue for 2017, DMI categorized $82.2 million as “domestic marketing”, $17.1 million as “export”, while $7.85 million was research, and nearly $7 million for contract services and other expenses.

Since we know that Edelman received $17.6 million from DMI for “agency services” in 2017, it’s clear that some of that is in a category other than “contract services.”

Compensation of board officers, directors and trustees totaled just shy of $3 million.

Other salaries and wages totaled $17.6 million, with pensions and contributions $3.1 million, other employee benefits $2.3 million, and payroll taxes $1.37 million.

Legal, accounting and other totaled around $550,000, office expenses $1.5 million, information technology $2.7 million, rents or occupancy $1.65 million.

In total compensation from DMI and related agencies under DMI control, the highest paid staff in 2017 was executive vice president Dr. Greg Miller (Doctor Dairy), who heads up NDC’s Dairy Research, at $1,546,760.

Listed as a “former highest-compensated employee”, Daniel Chavka, one of several DMI chief financial officers, was paid $769,475. Chief financial officer Carolyn Gibbs was second-highest, paid staff at $1,191,557 through July, and another CFO Quinton Bailey earned $246,542 in 2017.

DMI CEO Tom Gallagher was paid $899,810, followed by executive vice president Jean Ragalie-Carr at $857,406. She is a registered dietician serving as National Dairy Council president.

Fifth-highest paid officer is former Secretary of Agriculture Tom Vilsack in his first year as a DMI executive vice president, serving as president and CEO of DMI’s USDEC. From DMI and related agencies under DMI control, Vilsack was paid $800,557 in 2017.

DMI president Barb O’Brien was compensated $649,419 in 2017.

Additionally, two other DMI executive vice presidents Mark Leitner and Elizabeth Engelmann were compensated $638,041 and $478,809, respectively, in 2017.

The total for items related to salaries, other compensation, and employee benefits for 2017 was listed at $27.37 million – 17.7% of total revenue in 2017.

The agency services of Edelman, at $17.8 million, was 11.5% of total 2017 DMI revenue.

The $8 million paid to Fairlife LLC was 5% of total revenue.

DMI travel was listed at $3.55 million, while the line item for conferences, conventions and meetings was $1.46 million in 2017.

The DMI board chair (listed as Paul Rovey in 2017) was paid $25,000. Other board officers and members of the executive board saw compensation ranging from $1800 to $8600, while many board directors were listed as receiving zero compensation.

To be continued

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