Are we moving toward cow islands and milk deserts?

Posted on August 20, 2022 by Agmoos

Opinion/Analysis

By Sherry Bunting, Farmshine (combined 2 part series Aug. 12 and 19, 2022)

In Class I utilization markets, the landscape is rapidly shifting, and we should pay attention, lest we end up with ‘cow islands’ and ‘milk deserts.’

Farmshine readers may recall in November 2019, I wrote in the Market Moos column about comments made Nov. 5 by Randy Mooney, chairman of both the DFA and NMPF boards during the annual convention in New Orleans of National Milk Producers Federation together with the two checkoff boards — National Dairy Board and United Dairy Industry Association.

Mooney gave a glimpse of the future in his speech that was podcast. (Listen here at 13:37 minutes). He said he had been “looking at a map,” seeing “plants on top of plants,” and he urged the dairy industry to “collectively consolidate,” to target limited resources “toward those plants that are capable of making the new and innovative products.”

One week later, Dean Foods (Southern Foods Group LLC) filed for bankruptcy as talks between Dean and DFA about a DFA purchase were already underway. It was the first domino right on the heels of Mooney’s comments, followed by Borden filing Chapter 11 two months later in January, and followed by three-years of fresh fluid milk plant closings and changes in ownership against the backdrop of declining fluid milk sales and an influx of new dairy-based beverage innovations, ultrafiltered and shelf-stable milk, as well as lookalike alternatives and blends.

The map today looks a lot different from the one described by Mooney in November 2019 when he urged the industry to “collectively consolidate.” The simultaneous investments in extended shelf-life (ESL) and aseptic packaging are also a sign of the direction of ‘innovation’ Mooney may have been referring to.

Two months prior to Mooney issuing that challenge, I was covering a September 2019 industry meeting in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania, where dairy checkoff presenters made it clear that the emphasis of the future is on launching innovative new beverages and dairy-‘based’ products.

Here is an excerpt from my opinion/analysis of the discussion at that time:

“While we are told that consumers are ditching the gallon jug (although it is still by far the largest sector of sales), and we are told consumers are looking for these new products; at the same time, we are also told that it is the dairy checkoff’s innovation and revitalization strategy to ‘work with industry partners to move consumers away from the habit of reaching for the jug and toward looking for these new and innovative products’ that checkoff dollars are launching.”

These strategy revelations foreshadowed where the fluid milk markets appear to be heading today, and this is also obvious from recent Farmshine articles showing the shifting landscape in cow, farm, and milk production numbers.

When viewing the picture of the map that is emerging, big questions come to mind:

Are today’s Class I milk markets under threat of becoming ‘milk deserts’ as the dairy industry consolidates into ‘cow islands’?

Would dairy farmers benefit from less regulation of Class I pricing in the future so producers outside of the “collectively consolidating” major-player-complex are freer to seek strategies and alliances of their own, to carve out market spaces with consumers desiring and rediscovering fresh and local, to put their checkoff dollars toward promotion that helps their farms remain viable and keeps their regions from becoming milk deserts?

What role is the industry’s Net Zero Initiative playing behind the scenes, the monitoring, scoring, tracking of carbon, the way energy intensity may be viewed for transportation and refrigeration and other factors in Scope 1, 2 and 3 ESG (Environment, Social, Governance) scores?

Shelf-stable milk may provide solutions for some emerging (or are they self-inflicted?) milk access and distribution dilemmas, and maybe one view of ESG scoring favors it? But ultimately it also means milk can come from cow islands to milk deserts — from anywhere, to anywhere.

It also becomes clearer why the whole milk bill is having so much trouble moving forward. The industry machine gives lip-service support to the notion of whole milk in schools, but the reality is, the industry is chasing other lanes on this highway to ‘improve’ the school milk ‘experience’ and ensure milk ‘access’ through innovations that at the same time pave the road from the ‘cow islands’ to the ‘milk deserts.’

It is now clearer — to me — why the Class I mover formula is such a hotly debated topic.

If major industry-driving consolidators are looking to transition away from turning over cow to consumer fresh, local/regional milk supplies by turning toward beverage stockpiles that can sit in a warehouse ‘Coca-Cola-style’ at ambient temperatures for six to 12 months, it’s no wonder the consolidators want the ‘higher of’ formula to stay buried. What a subversion that was in the 2018 Farm Bill.

In fact, if the industry is pursuing a transition from fresh, fluid milk to a more emphasis on shelf-stable aseptic milk, such a transition would, in effect, turn the federal milk marketing orders’ purpose and structure — that is tied to Class I fresh fluid milk — completely upside down.

Landscape change has been in motion for years, but let’s look at the past 6 years — Dean had already closed multiple plants and cut producers in the face of Walmart opening it’s own milk bottling plant in Spring 2018. The Class I ‘mover’ formula for pricing fluid milk — the only milk class required to participate in Federal Milk Marketing Orders — was changed in the 2018 Farm Bill that went into effect Sept. 2018. The new Class I mover formula was implemented by USDA in May 2019, resulting in net losses to dairy farmers on their payments for Class I of well over $750 million across 43 months since then.

(Side note: Under the formula change, $436 million of Class I value stayed in processor pockets from May 2019 through October 2019, alone. DFA purchased 44 Dean Foods plants in May 2019 and became by far the largest Class I processor at that time.)

These and other landscape changes were already in motion when Mooney spoke on Nov. 5, 2019 at the convention of NMPF, NDB and UDIA describing the milk map and seeing plants on top of plants and issuing the challenge to “collectively consolidate” to target resources to those plants that can make the innovative new products.

One week later, Nov. 12, 2019, Dean Foods filed for bankruptcy protection to reorganize and sell assets (mainly to DFA).

Since 2019, this and other major changes have occurred as consolidation of Class I milk markets tightens substantially around high population swaths, leaving in wake the new concerns about milk access that spur the movement toward ESL and aseptic milk. A chain reaction.

What does Mooney’s map look like today after his 2019 call for “collective consolidation” and the targeting of investments to plants that can make the innovative products, the plants that DMI fluid milk revitalization head Paul Ziemnisky told farmers in a 2021 conference call were going to need to be “dual-purpose” — taking in all sorts of ingredients, making all sorts of beverages and products, blending, ultrafiltering, and, we see it now, aseptically packaging?

In addition to the base of Class I processing it already owned a decade ago, the string of DFA mergers has been massive. The most recent acquisitions, along with exits by competitors, essentially funnel even more of the market around key population centers to DFA with its collective consolidation strategy and investments in ESL and aseptic packaging.

The South —

The 14 Southeast states (Maryland to Florida and west to Arkansas) have 29% of the U.S. population. If you include Texas and Missouri crossover milk flows, we are talking about 37% of the U.S. population.

The major players in the greater Southeast fluid milk market include DFA enlarged by its Dean purchases, Kroger supplied by Select and DFA, Prairie Farms with its own plants, DFA and Prairie Farms with joint ownership of Hiland Dairy plants, Publix supermarkets with its own plants, an uncertain future for four remaining Borden plants in the region as Borden has exited even the retail market in some of these states, and a handful of other fluid milk processors.

In Texas, alone, DFA now owns or jointly owns a huge swath of the fluid milk processing plants, having purchased all Dean assets in the Lone Star State in the May 2020 bankruptcy sale and now positioned to gain joint ownership of all Borden Texas holdings through the announced sale to Hiland Dairy.

The Midwest —

Just looking at the greater Chicago, Milwaukee, Green Bay metropolis, the population totals are a lake-clustered 6% of U.S. population. Given the recent closure by Borden of the former Dean plants in Chemung, Illinois and De Pere, Wisconsin, this market is in flux with DFA owning various supply plants including a former Dean plant in Illinois and one in Iowa with Prairie Farms having purchased several of the Dean plants serving the region.

In the Mideast, there is Coca Cola with fairlife, Walmart and Kroger among the supermarkets with their own processing, and DFA owning two former Dean plants in Ohio, two in Indiana, two in Michigan, and a handful of other bottlers.

In the West: DFA owns a former Dean plant in New Mexico, two in Colorado, two in Montana, one in Idaho, two in Utah, one in Nevada and one in California, as well as other plants, of course.

The Northeast —

This brings us to the Northeast from Pennsylvania to Maine, where 18% of the U.S. population lives, and where consolidation of Class I markets, especially around the major Boston-NYC-Philadelphia metropolis have consolidated rapidly against the backdrop of declining fluid milk sales and a big push by non-dairy alternative beverage launches from former and current dairy processors.

DFA owns two former Dean plants in Massachusetts, one in New York, all four in Pennsylvania, one in New Jersey. The 2019 merger with St. Alban’s solidified additional New England fluid milk market under DFA. In 2013, DFA had purchased the Dairy Maid plant from the Rona family in Maryland; in 2014, the prominent Oakhurst plant in Maine; and in 2017, the Cumberland Dairy plant in South Jersey.

More recently, DFA struck a 2021 deal with Wakefern Foods to supply their Bowl and Basket and other milk, dairy, and non-dairy brands for the various supermarket chains and convenience stores under the Wakefern umbrella covering the greater New York City metropolis into New Jersey and eastern Pennsylvania. This milk had previously been supplied by independent farms, processed at Wakefern’s own iconic Readington Farms plant in North Jersey, which Wakefern subsequently closed in January 2022.

The long and twisted tale begs additional questions:

As Borden has dwindled in short order from 14 plants to five serving the most populous region of the U.S. – the Southland — what will happen with the remaining five plants in Ohio, Kentucky, Georgia, Louisiana, and Florida? What will become of Elsie the Cow and Borden’s iconic brands and new products?

What percentage of the “collectively consolidated” U.S. fluid milk market does DFA now completely or partially own and/or control?

Will the “collective consolidation” in the form of closures, sales and mergers continue to push shelf-stable ESL and aseptic milk into Class I retail markets and especially schools… and will consumers, especially kids, like this milk and drink it?

What role are rising energy prices, climate ESG-scoring and net-zero pledges and proclamations playing in the plant closures and shifts toward fewer school and retail milk deliveries, less refrigeration, more forward thrust for shelf-stable and lactose-free milk, as well as innovations into evermore non-dairy launches and so-called flexitarian blending and pairing?

Looking ahead at how not only governments around the world, but also corporations, creditors and investors are positioning for climate/carbon tracking, ESG scoring and the so-called Great Reset, the Net Zero economy, there’s little doubt that these factors are driving the direction of fluid milk “innovation” over the 12 years that DMI’s Innovation Center has coordinated the so-called ‘fluid milk revitalization’ initiative — at the same time developing the FARM program and the Net Zero Initiative.

The unloading of nine Borden plants in five months under Gregg Engles, the CEO of “New Borden” and former CEO of “Old Dean” is also not surprising. Engles is referred to in chronicles of dairy history not only as “the great consolidator” but also as “industry transformer.”

In addition to being CEO of Borden, Engles is chairman and managing partner of one of the two private equity investment firms that purchased the Borden assets in bankruptcy in June 2020. Investment firms fancy themselves at the forefront of ESG scoring.

Engles is also one of only two U.S. members of the Danone board of directors. Danone, owner of former Dean’s WhiteWave, including Silk plant-based and Horizon Organic milk, has positioned itself in the forefront on 2030 ESG goals, according to its 2019 ‘one planet, one health’ template that has also driven consolidation and market loss in the Northeast.

Not only is Danone dumping clusters of its Horizon milk-supplying organic family dairy farms, it continues to heavily invest in non-dairy processing, branding, launching and marketing of alternative lookalike dairy products and beverages, including Next Milk, Not Milk and Wondermilk.

There is plenty of food-for-thought to chew on here from the positives to the negatives of innovation, consolidation, and climate ESGs hitting full-throttle in tandem. These issues require forward-looking discussion so dairy farmers in areas with substantial reliance on Class I fluid milk sales can navigate the road ahead and examine all lanes on this highway that appears to be leading to cow islands and milk deserts.

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DFA antitrust lawsuit in Vermont ends before jury trial began

Posted on September 30, 2020 by Agmoos

Potential settlement details undisclosed; Case had revealing ‘wins’ over four years, but FMMO 1 map limitations posed problems

By Sherry Bunting, Farmshine, October 2, 2020

BURLINGTON, Vt. – In an unexpected twist this week, the civil antitrust case Sitts et. al. vs. Dairy Farmers of America / Dairy Marketing Services was dismissed on the eve of the jury trial that had been set to begin Sept. 30 in the U.S. District Court of Vermont with Judge Christina Reiss presiding.

A Stipulation of Dismissal with Prejudice was accepted by attorneys for defendant DFA / DMS and the 116 dairy farmer plaintiffs that had opted out of the previously settled Northeast Class Action Antitrust lawsuit to file the civil suit.

The Stipulation of Dismissal with Prejudice docket simply states: “The parties hereby stipulate to the dismissal of the above-captioned action with prejudice,with all rights of appeal waived, and each party to bear their own costs and attorney’s fees.”

A ‘stipulation of dismissal with prejudice’ is a legal term meaning that the case is over and done with and can’t be brought back.

We have learned that the stipulation requires parties to not discuss the terms of the “dismissal”, which means that settlement details will not be disclosed as public information.

Over the four years since the civil antitrust case was filed in October of 2016, some of the 116 plaintiff dairy farmers have since exited dairy farming.

Dairy farmers who looked forward to “a day in court” with a jury hearing evidence about the increasingly concentrated and anti-competitive milk marketing environment they live every day are likely disappointed by this outcome.

But even though this case is over, some ‘wins’ happened over the four years that could accomplish transparency in smaller case filings in the future.

Throughout the four years, information about the alleged antitrust monopsony actions of defendant DFA, and the position of the plaintiffs as dairy farmers, was revealed at intervals during the proceedings.

Judge Reiss’s Opinion and Order exactly a year ago on Sept. 27, 2019 is one example.

Her Opinion and Order on this case in denying in part DFA’s request for summary judgment stated that, “Plaintiffs’ identify evidence that several of Defendants’ agreements violate a 1977 Consent Decree and Defendants’ own Antitrust Policy and Guidelines. A rational jury could find this evidence demonstrates that Defendants’ ‘acquisition of [ monopsony] power’ was through ‘predatory means.’”

In fact, this 58-page Opinion and Order, along with the amicus brief filed by the U.S. Department of Justice as a Statement of Interest in July, have provided support for others to move forward in smaller cases seeking vital financial information about the workings of DFA, the cooperative of which they are members. (More on that in the future.)

The DOJ statement filed in the Vermont antitrust case in July stated that the alleged activities fall outside of Capper-Volstead protections and that the allegations in the case “do not appear to have involved efforts to increase farmers’ bargaining power but rather efforts at monopsonization.”

The DOJ’s 15-page statement filed in July 2020 represents the first time the DOJ has really weighed-in on the monopsonization of milk markets to basically say the “heartland protections” of the Capper-Volstead Act do not apply to the activities alleged.

In fact, DOJ stated in the brief that the claims at issue fell outside the Capper-Volstead protection because “they do not involve claims that farmer cooperatives acted anticompetitively against processors and other middlemen, but rather that these were claims that farmer cooperatives through agreements with processors, middlemen and other cooperatives, acted anticompetitively against other farmers.”

Part of the issue for the plaintiffs in the Vermont antitrust case — throughout the procedural elements of four years — was that exhibits, testimony, depositions about activities just outside of the Northeast Milk Marketing Federal Order One lines on an arbitrary map were deemed outside the jurisdiction of the case.

It is interesting to note that even evidentiary exhibits at the case docket about activities in central Pennsylvania was scratched from use in the trial simply because central Pennsylvania is one of several geographies in the Northeast that are technically “unregulated” by FMMO 1 and thus not included in the FMMO 1 “map” — even though central Pennsylvania is surrounded on one side by FMMO 1’s map and on the other side by FMMO 33’s map, and the milk from these farms moves through these FMMO marketing channels, plants and cooperatives.

So many moving parts to assemble and so many challenges to use information subject to exclusion based on FMMO maps, it boggles the mind.

Similarly, ‘collaborations’ of one sort or another — revealed through exhibits, testimony, depositions and the like — that occurred in other FMMOs linked to how milk markets function in FMMO 1, or showing a pattern of behavior, were also deemed outside the jurisdiction of this case.

This, despite defendant DFA / DMS being a national footprint milk cooperative that interestingly draws its own area council maps in ways that blend geographies between FMMOs. This, despite defendant DFA / DMS in testimony before the Pa. Milk Marketing Board or in requests made to FMMO 1 market administrators often positions itself as the all-knowing one on milk flow from its birdseye view of the national, even global, dairy grid.

A basic tenet of the case was plaintiff’s claim that DFA is ’empire-building’ not bargaining on behalf of farmer members. During the four years of process on this case, information has been revealed, but DFA has continued to boldly forge its dairy dominance by aggressively bringing the Northeast regional cooperatives and independents that had been market-managed by DMS into the milk supply membership structure of DFA-proper 2017 through 2019, and then acquiring 44 of Dean Foods’ 57 fluid milk plants across the country in 2020.

DFA was listed by Rabobank last month as the largest dairy processor in the United States and third-largest dairy processor globally behind Nestle and Lactalis.

Through additional partnerships, joint ventures and marketing alliances, DFA has a hand in every pie, and no one, not even its members, really knows how the milk (and revenue) really flows.

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Co-ops seek bid process modifications, object to ‘stalking horse’ status in DFA bid for 44 Dean plants

Posted on March 12, 2020 by Agmoos

6 co-ops covering 3000 farms and 10% of milk cite bid barriers, antitrust concerns, detrimental impacts

By Sherry Bunting, Farmshine, Friday, March 13, 2020

HOUSTON, Texas – New ripples emerged this week in the Dean Foods Company (Southern Foods Group LLC) Chapter 11 sale proceedings in the bankruptcy court of the southern district of Texas.

Just three days before the March 12 hearing on Dean’s motion to approve DFA as “stalking horse bidder,” an ad hoc committee for dairy cooperatives filed a limited objection on Monday, March 9 regarding the Feb. 17th DFA-Dean asset purchase agreement that covers a majority of Dean’s assets.

If Judge David Jones grants stalking horse status to DFA’s $425 million bid for 44 of the 57 plants and other itemized assets and liabilities, this would become part of the bidding procedures, which the March 12 hearing is expected to further outline, and it would provide certain protections to DFA’s initial bid.

“A potential sale of assets to Dairy Farmers of America Inc. (DFA), if approved, would effectively consolidate DFA’s grip on the national milk market. The ripple effects of the sale will detrimentally impact all of DFA’s competitors, from the largest dairy cooperatives and milk producers, to the smallest farmers,” the objection stated.

“For exactly this reason, the ad hoc committee, which includes certain creditors of (Dean) and competitors of DFA, was formed to… monitor the Chapter 11 cases, examine the impact that a sale to DFA would have on their businesses, and to the greatest extent possible, ensure that some semblance of fairness remains in the competitive process for the benefit of all dairy cooperatives,” the objection stated.

The ad hoc committee represents what is described as a broad cross-section of U.S. farm milk, covering over 3000-member dairy farms producing nearly 10% of the nation’s milk.
Six cooperatives are listed in the objection, and they have a mix of circumstances — one is a creditor of the debtor (Dean Foods) some are non-creditors except for non-pool payments that are owed, some are current suppliers of Dean Foods, and some are competitors in retail milk distribution.

According to the objection on the case docket, the six co-ops are:

• Lone Star Milk Producers, Inc., based in Wichita Falls, Texas with 120 member farms in eight states, marketing 1.9 billion pounds of milk annually;

• Agri-Mark Inc.,with 850 member farms in New England and New York marketing 3.3 billion pounds of milk annually;

• Cayuga Marketing, LLC, based in Auburn, New York with 30 member farms producing 1.3 billion pounds of milk annually;

• Cobblestone Milk Cooperative, Inc., Chatham, Virginia with 19 member farms from Virginia to Georgia marketing 0.6 billion pounds of milk annually;

• Maryland and Virginia Milk Producers Cooperative Association Inc., with 930 member farms in multiple states of the Midatlantic and Southeast producing 2.5 billion pounds of milk annually; and

• Michigan Milk Producers Association with 1300 member farms in Michigan, Ohio, Indiana and Wisconsin producing over 5 billion pounds of milk annually.
The limited objection seeks to address “certain fundamental flaws in the bidding procedures,” which “exacerbate the antitrust issues that plague the debtors’ proposed sale to DFA.”

• In a separate action, Southeast Milk, a Florida-based dairy cooperative also filed a similar objection this week.

At the start of the Chapter 11 cases that were all lumped together under Southern Foods Group LLC, the debtors, Dean Foods, proclaimed intentions of expanding the sale and marketing process and of exploring restructuring alternatives. Instead, the objection asserts that Dean Foods “spent months negotiating and finalizing proposed bidding procedures with DFA that only serve to create unnecessary competitive issues.”

Cited barriers to competing bids included the multi-step qualification process and compressed time frame that make it difficult for others to bid, including the use of terms that are not defined.

“Perhaps by design, these procedures make it a foregone conclusion that DFA will be the successful bidder for all stalking horse assets, even assuming that an auction were to occur,” the objection states.

On these and other grounds, the ad hoc committee for dairy cooperatives filed the limited objection and submitted that, “The proposed bidding procedures are not reasonably designed to secure the highest and best bid for the sale of the bid assets.”

While the debtors assert their proposed bidding procedures were designed to facilitate a flexible, robust and competitive bidding process, the objection asserts that, “The debtors have closely held all sale-related information and other information that they consider to be potentially confidential.”

In addition, objections are raised about the bidding procedures being “strategically crafted to prevent any of the stalking horse assets (44 plants) from being siphoned off by DFA’s competitors and broken down into auction lots that could yield a greater aggregate sale price for the debtors’ estates.”

The breadth of the DFA-Dean asset purchase agreement is a barrier if approved as ‘stalking horse’ assets because few, if any, bidders could compete on those assets collectively — keeping potential regional buyers that could be affected by the outcome from actually bidding.

Several modifications are requested, including how qualifications are set, how much discretion is given to Dean on separating auction lots, extension of the time frame, and a dual track auction process that would provide for back-up successful bidders and back-up alternate bidders for auction lots as separate sale transactions in the event that the DOJ does not provide the necessary regulatory approval for the sale to DFA.

Stay tuned.

While Dean negotiated with DFA, other interests requested documents they never received

Posted on March 6, 2020 by Agmoos

Antitrust issues at core of motion to form equity holders committee

By Sherry Bunting, Farmshine, Friday, March 6, 2020

HOUSTON, Tex. – Ahead of next week’s hearings on the Dean Foods Company (Southern Foods Group LLC) bankruptcy and sale, it is illustrative to review the motions hearing of Feb. 19. On tap for March 12 is the hearing to consider DFA as “stalking horse bidder” with the asset purchase agreement DFA and Dean agreed to on Feb. 17 involving 44 plants at a $425 million bid as reported Feb. 21 in Farmshine.

Also on tap next week is a hearing set for March 10 on the motion presented by Joshua Haar to form an adhoc committee of shareholders.

During the Feb. 19 motions hearing, there was extensive discussion about professional bonus payments to keep top staff on board during the bankruptcy. An attorney representing the Teamsters Union challenged these retention bonuses in the face of knowing union contracts will be renegotiated by new buyers, especially if the buyer is DFA.

The bottom line in that exchange was summed up by Judge David Jones’ comment that he is guided by his own interpretation of the numbers, trusts his own bankruptcy experience and skill sets and has clear concern that all parties should work together to see that the assets of Dean Foods continue to operate. Period.

In fact, Judge Jones often chided attorneys to talk in terms of the “practicality” of the situation above their own “strategically” motivated interests.

“I need what’s left of this company to be comfortable and stay in place,” said Jones. “We need to get to a sale process and have people see the opportunity for future jobs to stay in place.”

He showed low tolerance for any party expecting to get 100% of what they have gotten in the past (except for retaining the “critical institutional knowledge” provided by professional staff receiving bonuses), and he indicated that the retention bonus payments are necessary in that regard, giving him “some comfort that we may actually make the end of this because good people will stay in place.”

The Teamsters’ concerns were for financial awards and windfall profits to “talent at the top” while their member employees become creditors owed vacation and so forth.

To understand how Judge Jones views the national fluid milk model of Dean Foods, he said: “This is a business model that worked in the 60s and doesn’t work in 2020,” he said. “I could give a first-year business student this business model and they would look at me and say this is a model that doesn’t work.”

Judge Jones asked during motions, “Why not be hand-in-hand on this issue? I do not want to be responsible for school children not getting their milk, that means a lot to me.”

Saying that the Unions have overstepped in trying to prevent the payment of retention bonuses to professionals that constitute “institutional knowledge,” Judge Jones granted the debtor’s (Dean’s) motion to approve the “key employee retention plan” consisting of a schedule for paying these bonuses.

This exchange about “working together” — with the goal of keeping Dean assets operating — set the stage for Judge Jones to hear a motion by Joshua Haar to form an ad hoc committee of equity holders (shareholders). Haar is the attorney son of Jonathan and Claudia Haar, the New York dairy farmers who were part of the original representatives of the dairy farmer class in the previously settled Northeast Class Action Antitrust Lawsuit against DFA and Dean Foods.

Before hearing Haar’s motion, Judge Jones said he is “getting a sense of urgency,” in regard to seeing an end point and that he did not want to entertain motions that “extend the case on the backs of the vendors, including the farmers supplying the milk.”

In other words, he did not want to see the timeline of this case extended for an “exercise” that did not materially provide a practical solution.

Judge Jones offered to hear Haar’s motion the very next day, for which Haar said he would not be ready. Asking Haar if one hour is sufficient, Judge Jones set hearing on the appointment of an equity committee at 3 p.m. March 10 – two days before the March 12 hearing on the DFA “stalking horse” bid.

As part of this discussion, it was noted that the ad hoc committee of bondholders wanted time to put a plan forward, that they are “actively working on the financing and need time for equity holder involvement,” said Haar.

“On this equity committee request, there will never be an equity recovery here,” said the Judge. In fact, he added later that equity or share holders in Dean Foods, a publicly traded company “are in the worst possible place. If the debtor’s numbers are right, their money was lost years ago, and this is an event that recognizes history.”

Haar’s lengthy motion described milk supply chain and potential antitrust issues inherent in a DFA purchase, seeking time for other options to surface.

Judge Jones said he read the motion, but added: “I want you to understand the standard that is required for an equity committee. I’ll always give you the opportunity to talk and give the shareholder’s view of the world, but if you are looking for a committee, that’s a tough burden, and I expect you not to waste everyone’s time.”

He warned against a prepared speech of “just words… Telling me all the things you might do that are eloquent, I tend to be more blunt… especially when I tell people what’s coming and they choose to ignore it. I want you to represent your people. This is about people. But that’s what I expect.”

He expects an equity holders committee to be able to contribute to the process of the Dean Foods reorganization and sale, not to use one group of stakeholder for the sake of others.

Haar indicated that among the equity holders are persons and entities “connected to 15% of the U.S. milk supply” so in that sense this motion was not trying the milk supply antitrust concerns but rather what could be a legitimate consideration of a better way to move forward with offers that could potentially allow equity holders to participate in value recovery.

It was apparent that Judge Jones needs to be convinced with numbers and math and actual bids that can be consummated in the next few months, not the eloquence of ideas about what can or should or could be some time in the future.

Harr said of the motion that, “We can add significant value to the estate.”

With that, the hearing for Haar’s motion was set for March 10 with response motions due March 3.

Next up in the vein of “other options” was the existing creditors committee. Their attorney indicated concern as to how the asset purchase agreement negotiations with DFA took place.

“They got bid materials. We issued requests for these materials. The debtor (Dean Foods) wanted to share these materials but were unable to share them with us because DFA put a confidentiality clause on it,” said the attorney for the Dean creditors. “We did a letter writing campaign. DFA would not agree. We did file an emergency form to compel the bid materials, and an hour before the bid deadline, the documents flowed to the advisors for the committee.”

In other words, too late to analyze the issues.

As the negotiations between Dean Foods and DFA continued, the creditors committee apparently repeated its requests for information and were told “no.”

Finally, a week before the Feb. 19 motions hearing, they received a two-page slide packet from DFA that “gave very little information and did not give the information about what Dean plants were included and excluded in that asset purchase agreement until it was announced publicly.

“The creditors committee’s initial impression is negative,” said the attorney representing the committee, indicating it will be heavily contested. “First and foremost, we are concerned about aggregate consideration… it is not clear that there is enough (in the bid) to pay-in-full the creditors.”

She mentioned that DFA, in addition to seeking stalking horse bidder status, is also a large creditor of Dean Foods with significant payables and that their bid could represent a “dollar-for-dollar deduction in value of assets to cover their claims.”

The Judge was un-moved. “If integration fixes the problem, then we ought to be working on integration,” he said, telling the DFA lawyer to work with the lawyer for the creditor committee. “Get her at your table,” he said.

The response from counsel for the creditors was that they want a seat at the table and would “engage in good faith, but there could still be a contested hearing on March 12.”

Attorneys for DFA and Dean indicated engaging in dialog with the DOJ on antitrust issues.

A potential bondholder bid was also referenced. The attorney for the creditors said the bondholders have done a “tremendous amount of work looking into financial investment into the company. We are hopeful the process can get there before March 12 with a more value-maximizing offer than the one on the table now.”

But again, it was mentioned that a “critical piece of information is still missing. There is some information that the ad hoc bondholder committee needs that the debtor is not willing to provide and we implore the debtor to turn it over now so the bondholders have the information. The next two weeks are critical.”

One item needed is “milk payables. We need to see, or the financiers need to see that, and it has been difficult getting it provided to us for third-party financing.”

Judge Jones offered his office as mediator for emergency hearings to get that flow of documents moving in the event that having the information allows other bid processes to go forward.

In short, the creditors committee, ad hoc bondholders committee and lenders were “left out of the information flow” during the Dean negotiations with DFA on their asset purchase agreement. They all read it at the same time (when it became public on Feb. 17) and are looking for a bid with more value to come in.

Judge Jones turned to the Dean Foods attorney and said “you took this in and you know what to do. I am trying to convey my sense of urgency here. Let’s figure out how to move the process forward. We all have the same goal.”

(Facilities in South Dakota, North Dakota and Minnesota — where Dean bottles under the Land O’Lakes brand — are excluded from the DFA-Dean asset purchase agreement. The licensing of the Land O’Lakes brand elsewhere is also excluded.)

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DFA-Dean reach initial $425 mil. bid agreement, starting point in court-supervised sale

Posted on February 20, 2020 by Agmoos

By Sherry Bunting, Farmshine, Friday, February 21, 2020

HOUSTON, Tex. — Dean Foods Company announced Monday, Feb. 17 that it has reached an initial agreement with Dairy Farmers of America (DFA) regarding sale of a substantial portion of Dean’s assets. The two parties have entered into an asset purchase agreement that was filed in the Southern Food Group bankruptcy case with the Court for the Southern District of Texas in Houston this week, along with other motions.

This is just a first-step in a legal process that will unfold over the next several months and begins with Dean’s motion seeking court approval of DFA as the “stalking horse bidder” with an initial bid of $425 million at a hearing set for March 12.

A “stalking horse bidder” is the low-bid that can be accepted by the debtor in a court-supervised sale, and with certain bid protections for that bidder if other bids are offered.

The agreement includes 44 of Dean’s 57 currently operating plants and other of Dean’s assets as well as certain liabilities related to these assets. But, as learned in an email interview with a Dean Foods spokesperson and a review of court documents, this is not an all-inclusive price for the 44 locations as certain real property connected to these assets is named as for additional purchase.

Furthermore, 14 of Dean’s operating plants and 13 closed plants and/or distribution depots are listed as excluded from the DFA-Dean agreement.

This agreement still requires the approval of the U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) and the United States Bankruptcy Court for the Southern District of Texas.

Anne Divjak, Dean Foods vice president for government relations and external communications, indicates that the company is cooperating with DOJ’s probe of antitrust concerns by providing requested information and answering questions.

Timeline and competing bids

A timeline for court hearings has been set beginning with the March 12 hearing to approve DFA as “stalking horse bidder.”

Interested parties with competing bids for the assets included in the DFA-Dean agreement as well as bidders for assets excluded from that agreement have until March 31 to provide the court with information in order to be considered as qualified potential bidders.

Those qualified bidders will then have until April 13 to submit bids.

A court-supervised auction would then be conducted sometime in April with an approval hearing set for April 27.

Negotiations continue

Divjak confirmed that Dean is speaking with other parties interested in acquiring assets – including some that are interested in assets excluded from the DFA-Dean agreement. Court documents also confirm that Dean is speaking with advisors and creditor committees about other restructuring options, though no details are provided.

Court documents reveal further that Dean Foods and investment banker Evercore Group, hired in February 2019 to evaluate potential strategies for the future, began negotiations with DFA in October 2019 — believing DFA to be the entity “likely to contribute significant value to the debtor’s businesses,” but they failed to reach agreement prior to the bankruptcy petition date of November 12.

After November 12, Evercore began communicating with additional potential strategic and financial buyers while continuing to engage with DFA, according to court documents.

These documents described the past three months in which Evercore received incoming interest from nearly 100 entities, including 55 potential strategic buyers (18 of them regional dairy companies) and 44 potential financial buyers. Of that number, 38 parties were provided with confidential information regarding Dean’s business. Several of those, including DFA, expressed interest in considering a transaction with Deans and were granted access to a data room containing additional confidential information on the bid assets.

Court documents also show Dean’s explanation that it continued to follow a “competitive process and arm’s length negotiations… to secure a bid from DFA,” which now pertains to the motion filed with the court on Monday seeking approval of DFA as the “stalking horse bidder.”

According to a Dean press release at the Dean Foods restructuring website (https://deanfoodsrestructuring.com/), president and CEO Eric Beringause states that, “We have had a relationship with DFA over the past 20 years, and we are confident in their ability to succeed in the current market and serve our customers with the same commitment to quality and service they have come to expect.”

At a Northeast Dairy Leadership meeting in Syracuse, New York right after the Dean bankruptcy filing in November, DFA CEO Rick Smith was quoted in a Berry on Dairy blog post to say: “Everybody’s been telling me for years that we are the logical owner of Dean’s. And I’ve already gotten phone calls about people who want to partner with us. We will be interested in some assets, undoubtedly. And not interested in some, undoubtedly. Some (assets) should be closed. Some will require partners.”

Of the assets excluded from the DFA-Dean agreement, half are currently operating plants and half are plants that are closed. Of the 13 closed plants Dean is looking to sell, eight were closed 15 to 20 years ago, several of them in 2001; and five were closed more recently in 2018 when over 130 dairy producers in eight states lost their Dean contracts after Walmart’s first milk bottling plant opened.

What’s included in the DFA-Dean agreement?

Included in the DFA-Dean agreement are all four currently-operating Dean plants in Pennsylvania – Lansdale, Lebanon, Schuylkill Haven and Sharpsville — along with the Florence, New Jersey plant.

Also included are one plant in New York, two in Massachusetts, two in North Carolina, one in South Carolina, two in Florida, two locations (three plants) in Tennessee, five in Texas, two in Ohio, two in Michigan, two in Indiana, three in Illinois, one in Iowa, one in Wisconsin, one in Idaho, two in Utah, one in Nevada, one in New Mexico, two in Montana, two in Colorado, one in California. The Barber Pure plant in Birmingham, Alabama is split with only the ice cream business being included in the Dean-DFA agreement while the fluid milk business has been excluded.

Brand assets that are part of the agreement include DairyPure, TruMoo and Steve’s Ice Cream.

Subsidiaries in Mexico are also mentioned in the agreement. Furthermore, Dean holds an ownership interest with Organic Valley in Organic Valley Fresh, and this distribution joint-venture is included in the DFA-Dean agreement.

Dean’s motions filed this week also seek certain “relief” items in the final auction process, including provisions that DFA would assume certain contracts and leases referred to as “proposed assumed contracts” that are connected to the sale transaction.

How this affects Dean Dairy Direct milk suppliers is unclear in terms of protection under the transfer of these milk supply contracts under the sale of related assets.

On Wednesday (Feb. 19), a hearing was conducted to handle a motion filed by a dairy farmer in Tennessee to end his milk supply contract with Dean to pursue a new contract with another milk buyer out of concern about potentially losing his Dean contract after the sale of assets is approved. Under bankruptcy court-supervised sale and reorganization, critical vendor contracts cannot be terminated or changed by either the debtor (Dean Foods) or the vendor (dairy producer) without court-approval. The outcome of the hearing was not yet available.

What’s excluded from the DFA-Dean agreement?

Among the 13 closed plants that are excluded from the DFA-Dean agreement are the recent closures of Meadow Gold in Erie, Pennsylvania, a Garelick plant in Lynn, Mass., and the Dean plants in Braselton, Georgia, Louisville, Kentucky, Florence, South Carolina and Livonia, Michigan.

They are all for sale, according to Divjak, who indicated Dean was “actively looking for buyers for these facilities before the asset purchase agreement was announced.”

Among the 14 operating plants that are excluded from the DFA-Dean agreement are notably the Land O’Lakes plants in Sioux Falls, South Dakota and Bismark, North Dakota, and several other Minnesota plant locations.

According to Divjak, the Land O’Lakes brand is not part of the DFA-Dean agreement. Dean has a long-term licensing contract with Land O’Lakes cooperative to use the brand name and Indian Maiden logo for fluid milk and soft products sold from Dean plants. That licensing agreement, which Divjak said could be negotiated by potential buyers, also applies to other Dean plants as whipping cream, half-and-half and other products sold under the Land O’Lakes brand name are found at supermarkets nationwide, while the Land O’Lakes line of whole milk, 2% reduced-fat, 1% low-fat and fat-free milk is a well-known brand with a following in the western Minnesota, South Dakota and greater Central Plains region.

Dean Foods’ minority interest in Good Karma, a flaxseed alternative non-dairy beverage, is not part of the agreement and is separate from the bankruptcy proceeding.

Before the November 12 Chapter 11 bankruptcy petition, Dean Foods had secured special financing of $850 million to underpin its position as debtor-in-possession as well as gaining court approval to use operational cash flow to continue operations and payments to critical vendors during bankruptcy and sale. The special financing was previously expected to keep operations going for about nine months — through July or August.

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ADDENDUM PUBLISHED IN MARKET MOOS COLUMN:

Revealing details in Dean deal

A conference hearing Wed., Feb. 19 in the Dean Foods bankruptcy and court-supervised sale case in Houston, Texas, available by teleconference, revealed many details as motions were heard. Attorneys representing the creditors committee, lenders committee, bondholders committees, Dean Foods, DFA, and a growing list of interested parties covered some sale transition concerns and concerns of creditors about the the low bid of $425 million by DFA that Dean is asking Judge David Jones to approve as a “stalking horse bid” at a hearing set for March 12.

Attorneys argued that the flow of necessary proprietary information from Dean Foods to other parties interested in offering bids has been stalled and delayed to the point where other interested parties were learning about what plants are included and excluded in the DFA-Dean agreement for the first time on Monday — the same day as the rest of the world found out via press release from Dean Foods.

For example, the adhoc bondholders committee is still waiting on a critical piece of information related to milk payables. In that regard, an attorney representing the creditors committee revealed that DFA — as a large creditor of Dean Foods with significant payables — could have a $1 for $1 deduction in its bid offer to secure its claims that other creditors do not share because DFA is also a critical vendor.

Judge Jones had earlier commented that the business model of the company “worked great in the 1960s but not 2020.” As a self-proclaimed “numbers guy,” the judge said he has looked at the numbers and done the math, and his assessment was hinted at when he commented that there is a sense of urgency to get this deal done so that the bankruptcy proceedings do not fall on the backs of vendors, including farmers and communities.

He said he did not want to be responsible for schoolchildren not getting their milk if the process is protracted for too long and the company fails.

He also stated that, “If integration fixes the problem, we ought to be working on integration.”

Toward that end he asked the entities to work together to see to it that the information needed flows to where it needs to go, but responsibly, and that he will give hearings and listen to all qualified interests, but that he did not want motions and proposals that simply waste the court’s time.

Also, a dairy farmer seeking permission to end his milk supply contract with Dean in February was granted permission as he asserted concerns about ultimately losing the contract after the company is sold and had another option for his milk.

The time has come to disrupt the disruptors

Posted on December 5, 2019 by Agmoos

Opinion: Dean bankruptcy offers opportunity we should earnestly pursue

By Sherry Bunting, Farmshine, Friday, Nov. 29, 2019

If ever there was a time for state governments to sit down with their dairy farmers and agriculture infrastructure for a meeting of the minds… it is now.

The future is very much at stake with Dean Foods – the nation’s largest milk bottler – in Chapter 11 bankruptcy and sale proceedings, as the industry is largely signaling the buyer should be DFA.

But not so fast.

This could be an opportunity to look at the strength of Dean’s holdings and consider a different path forward, one that returns some of the regional branding power to farmers and consumers in the regions served by Dean’s 60 milk processing plants.

Dean Foods accounts for one-third of the milk bottled in the U.S., and the roots of its holdings go back to family operations with brands that were once – and some still are – household names.

In focus groups and shopper surveys, consumers demonstrate they understand what it means to buy local. They understand that buying local – especially fresh staples like milk – means keeping their dollars working in their communities. Consumers also say they want to help local farms. And they want to see clear labeling to know where their milk comes from.

Meanwhile, surveys show the gallon and half-gallon jug are still the most popular packaging among real milk buyers. Even though the category as a whole is declining, it is still a huge category and one that has not been tended or nurtured or cared for in more than a decade. In fact, the category has seen the deck stacked against it by government rules and government speech.

Taste is also important to consumers, as is nutrition. Where fluid milk is concerned, these two areas have also been lacking because checkoff-funded promotion became government speech that pushed fat-free and low-fat milk to the point where consumers have no idea what real milk tastes like – until they switch to whole milk, and they are.

Folks, this is an opportunity to chart a new path for fresh fluid milk, to breathe some life into it. We see it in whole milk sales that are rising. Just think what could be accomplished if significant resources were devoted to truly revitalizing milk.

As the dairy industry streamlines behind innovation and checkoff-funded partnerships to disrupt the dairy case — to be more like the plant-based non-dairy disruptors — there is still a majority of consumers choosing real milk, and more of them are choosing real whole milk as whole milk today is the top seller in the category, and whole flavored milk is growing by double-digits.

Can we disrupt all the disruption with a disruptive back-to-the-future original? I think so. But now is the time to hit it hard. A few years from now will be too late.

Dean Foods has the network and the facilities and the history a savvy consortium of buyers could tap into for going back to local or regional emphasis with brands. The DairyPure national branding experiment started out strong, but in the past few years has been squeezed-out by large retailers – and notably Walmart — pushing their own store brands with loss-leading strategies while hoisting the price of Dean DairyPure much higher.

And that’s part of the problem. Stores think it’s okay to loss-lead with milk, but they are not willing to eat that loss themselves. We need them at the regional dairy future table as well.

In the bankruptcy proceedings at hand, some of Dean Foods’ unsecured bondholders are protesting a rapid sale of assets to DFA in what they say equates to a “fire sale” that doesn’t maximize value. Did Dean receive a proposal from them too before filing bankruptcy? Sources indicate bondholders offered restructuring terms before the bankruptcy filing that would have changed the current picture for Dean Foods.

Will these bondholders that are opposing sale to DFA make an offer now? Can Dean Foods’ assets be sold piece by piece to be broken up more regionally? These questions don’t have clear answers at this time.

What is clear is that payments for milk by Dean to DFA are being delayed five business days as bondholders want to be sure they are truly ‘critical vendor’ payments and that there are no shenanigans between the would-be buyer and seller.

What is also clear is that Dean and DFA have a history, and that history includes the good, the bad, and yes, the ugly.

DFA was there every step of the way as mergers and acquisitions led Dean Foods on its path to become the nation’s largest milk bottler. DFA is Dean’s largest supplier of milk, and DFA leaders are on record stating that Dean Foods is the largest buyer of DFA milk.

If DFA purchases “substantially all” of Dean’s assets, we know more rapid consolidation of the fluid milk market will occur. DFA’s leaders — as well as the leaders of all the prominent organizations in the dairy industry, including the dairy checkoff — have been clear if we’re paying attention. The future they see is in moving away from investing in fresh fluid milk and moving toward ultrafiltration and aseptic packaging and blending and innovating for beverages that can be supplied to anywhere from anywhere without transporting milk’s water-volume by tanker.

Those are more of the ingredients for a monopolization of milk that may not even be considered by the Department of Justice. Without another offer or series of regional offers on the table, DFA would stand as the only option — other than complete failure of the firm under bankruptcy. This, alone, could put the sale to DFA on the fast track as sources talk about bankruptcy clauses that allow purchases to occur — without DOJ approval — when failure is the only other option.

So while consumers are consciously being pursued by the industry and dairy checkoff to move them away from their habit of reaching for that jug of milk and toward new beverages that contain milk — or are innovated new varieties of milk, or are blended and diluted with plant-based alternatives — what happens to the dairy producers in communities whose relevance is tied closely with retaining fresh fluid milk as a nurtured market and being a producer of a ‘local’ and fresh product? These producers are also forced to pay into the dairy checkoff that is developing these alternatives, not promoting or educating about fresh whole milk, and in effect funding their own demise.

Who will tend this store, nurture these customers, satisfy consumer desires to buy-local and ‘help farmers’ and their new-found eagerness to learn more about real fresh whole milk nutrition?

If states and regions don’t work to keep fresh milk facilities in their midst, the global message on ‘sustainability’, ‘carbon footprint’, ‘flexitarian diets,’ and ‘planetary boundaries’ will overtake the public consciousness, and the choices disrupting and diluting the dairy case will overtake fresh fluid milk.

In business today, that’s all we hear: Innovate and disrupt. Maybe it’s time to disrupt the disruptors, to put together a fresh fluid milk branding and packaging campaign that makes milk new again.

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DEAN BANKRUPTCY: Court allows critical vendor payments; DFA’s Smith says ‘We are logical owner’

Posted on December 5, 2019 by Agmoos

The level of transparency in the Dean Foods Chapter 11 bankruptcy is unprecedented. Included in the Chapter 11 proceedings are Dean’s 60 dairy plants and numerous name brands, including: national brands DairyPure and TruMoo; along with regionally branded milks, as well as Friendly’s Ice Cream and other cream products. This graphic in the Dean Foods’ declaration to the bankruptcy court shows the implications for consumers, farmers, businesses throughout the nation, reinforcing the importance of Dean Foods continuing operations during the Chapter 11 bankruptcy proceedings and court-supervised sale of assets.

By Sherry Bunting, Farmshine, Friday, Nov. 22, 2019

BROWNSTOWN, Pa. – When a dairy firm files bankruptcy, the first concern is whether farmers will be paid for milk already shipped. That first hurdle was passed as independent shippers to Dean Foods plants in at least three states report receiving payment in full for October milk, though the settlement checks due Nov. 15 were deposited two to three days late, in many cases.

In Pennsylvania, because of its unique Milk Marketing Board that implements and oversees the state’s Milk Marketing Law, PMMB indicates they are following up to be sure payments are made every two weeks instead of waiting for normal periodic auditing. Pennsylvania’s mandatory over-order premium on fluid milk produced, processed and sold in Pennsylvania is part of the minimum price bottlers must pay, and there have been no actions by the board to adjust this in any way.

Other states’ producers also report receiving payments in full.

In fact, Dean Foods’ spokesperson Anne Divjak reported to Farmshine last week that it is “business as usual” for Dean Foods to keep the milk flowing from farms to schools and supermarkets during the Chapter 11 bankruptcy reorganization and sale. The first regulated payments for milk after filing bankruptcy encountered just a small delay as banks needed to be aware of honoring the payments after the bankruptcy court decision last Wednesday afternoon allowed “critical vendor” to be paid.

Multiple sources indicate that Dean focused on getting payments to independents first, then small cooperatives, then DFA. There is no confirmation on whether DFA’s milk shipments were paid in full or what portion of the $172.9 million attributed to DFA as a creditor in the bankruptcy filing represent milk shipments.

Orders signed by Judge David Jones of the Southern District of Texas bankruptcy court where Dean’s petition was filed, are what allowed Dean Foods to pay “critical vendors” for pre-petition purchases and to continue its operations by accessing cash on hand as well as having access to up to $475 million of the new $850 million in debtor-in-possession financing to keep the ship sailing for nine months as reorganization and sale are sorted out.

Included in the Chapter 11 proceedings are Dean’s 60 dairy plants and numerous name brands, including: national brands DairyPure and TruMoo; along with regionally branded names for example Swiss Premium and Lehigh Valley in Pennsylvania; Garelick in New York and New England; Mayfield and Purity in the Southeast; as well as the Land O’Lakes milk brand in the Central Plains, where Dean licenses the Land O’Lakes logo and name and the cooperative supplies those plants. It also includes Friendly’s Ice Cream and other cream products produced by Dean Foods.

As the nation’s largest milk bottler, Dean Foods accounts for roughly one-third of the U.S. fluid milk market but saw volume losses from various fronts in the past two years and stock shares had fallen below $1.00 with bonds also decreasing in value.

Overall fluid milk consumption is down. Private label store brands are a larger share of the down-trending market compared with brands. Walmart’s new plant in Fort Wayne last year affected their contracts to bottle Great Value and also changed the geography and position of Dean brands in several important Southeast and Mideast markets.

Dean also suffered other contract losses last year, and as Walmart bottled its own store label brand in several states and worked with Midwestern cooperatives to accomplish and supplement that start up, Dean saw its DairyPure and TruMoo brands replaced by Prairie Farms in many of those stores, and other Walmart stores as well.

Divjak did confirm that Dean’s majority interest in Good Karma, a non-dairy alternative beverage made from flaxseed, is separate from their dairy holdings in the bankruptcy proceedings. Dean purchased the Good Karma majority share a year ago for $15 million.

Interestingly, on Tuesday, November 12, the day that Dean Foods announced its bankruptcy petition, DFA was holding its Northeast Dairy Leadership meeting in Syracuse. Part of Dean’s announcement indicated that the company is in “advanced” talks with DFA about purchase of “substantially all assets.”

Chicago-based food science writer Donna Berry, with ties to DMI, was in Syracuse that day as a guest speaker on dairy protein and how it can be used in innovative foods and beverages to make plant-based options better. According to her Berry on Dairy blog story two days later, entitled “Dairy protein completes plant-based foods,” the mood in Syracuse was “upbeat.”

“Let’s face it, too often dairy marketers take the conservative road when it comes to promoting their products. Dairy Pure was the best Dean Foods could do for fluid milk, and it was not enough, as we see in its bankruptcy filing this week.

Berry went on in her blog post to quote DFA CEO Rick Smith before “a room packed with about 500 Northeast members of DFA and suppliers of services to DFA” at Tuesday’s Syracuse meeting.

The news of Dean Foods’ bankruptcy filing had just broken that morning, and Smith was already stating that, “Everybody’s been telling me for years that we are the logical owner of Dean’s. And I’ve already gotten phone calls about people who want to partner with us. We will be interested in some assets, undoubtedly. And not interested in some, undoubtedly. Some (assets) should be closed. Some will require partners.”

The week before, DFA chairman Randy Mooney’s comments at the NMPF / DMI meeting in New Orleans were loaded with concern about dairy farmers going out of business and loss of rural towns and infrastructure and that NMPF’s priorities were trade and immigration.

But something else Mooney said at that convention the week before Dean’s bankruptcy filing was foreshadowing. He talked about looking at a map and seeing “milk plants on top of milk plants” and how the industry needs to “collectively consolidate” toward plants “capable of making the new and innovative products consumers want.”

Dairy checkoff has made it clear that the emphasis of the future is on innovative new beverages and other products. While we are told that consumers are ditching the gallon jug (although it is still the largest sector of sales in 94% of households) and we are told consumers are looking for these new products; at the same time, we are also told that it is dairy checkoff’s innovation strategy to work with industry partners to “move consumers away from the habit of reaching for the jug and toward looking for these new and innovative products” that checkoff dollars are launching.

Meanwhile, Mooney’s comments about consolidating plants gives us a window into how DFA might treat those Dean assets if the “advanced talks” with Dean about purchasing them come to fruition. DFA will be a prime mover in the further consolidation of fluid milk assets markets if history is a guide.

Other industry analysts are also indicating that potential sale of “substantially all” Dean assets to DFA would likely consolidate these regional fluid milk bottling plants and create major shifts in how fluid milk is supplied to consumers in the future.

Dairy checkoff weighed in just hours after Dean’s bankruptcy announcement, Scott Wallin, vice president of industry media relations and issues management for Dairy Management Inc. (DMI), sent a media statement that, “Dairy Farmers of America (DFA) is in discussions to purchase the assets,” and went on to point out that, “In a decade shaped by a constantly changing marketplace, U.S. dairy has and will continue to successfully navigate the current economic environment… well positioned to expand its growth through innovation to meet the changing tastes and needs of today’s consumers.”

Others make the point that the Dean bankruptcy signals a milk information problem, not a milk demand problem. Noted agriculture radio personality Trent Loos stated in a broadcast drawing on his history with dairy farmers over the past 20 years, stating: “progressive producers were on the cutting edge of consumer education,” but that “their associations and most of the processors” have pushed in the opposite direction, insisting that consumers want low-fat and skim milk and skim water. He talked about how this is affecting the health of our children and teenagers not consuming enough milk, especially whole milk.

“Now that the producers are filing bankruptcy, the milk processors are filing bankruptcy too. Where does the milk industry go from here? The consumer’s not always right when they don’t have all of the information,” Loos said.

Meanwhile, in the “first-day” hearing on the Dean Foods Chapter 11 bankruptcy in Houston, Texas last Wednesday, at least one attorney — representing one-third of Dean’s bondholders — equated the filing and potential sale to DFA as a “fire-sale” of the company’s assets to DFA and they opposed this move.

Whether other serious buyers emerge – or strategies to regionalize sales of assets – remains to be seen.

For now, farms who ship milk to Dean Foods as independents or cooperatives are operating under levels of transparency and “business as usual” that were not seen in dairy bankruptcies of the past. Stay tuned.

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Dean Foods files bankruptcy, talks advance with DFA about assets

Posted on December 5, 2019 by Agmoos

The map of Dean Foods’ plants around the U.S show regional brands of years gone by that are part of the Dean Foods national milk business. Some analysts observe that the refrigerated distribution network of the company make it an optionality for whole milk and full-fat dairy products as those sales are rising while overall fluid milk sales have continued declining and the company is further challenged by contract volume losses and margin losses to below-cost private-label milk wars. Alternative beverages, reduced cereal (and with it milk) consumption, and other factors are being blamed. But at least some in the industry are recognizing that as the industry’s associations and some processors, along with the government, have pushed fat-free and low-fat as what consumers want or should have, fluid milk sales suffer from an information and education problem that has led to a consumption problem, and questions about where milk goes from here. More analysis on that next week.

By Sherry Bunting, Farmshine, Friday, Nov. 15, 2019

HOUSTON, Tex. — The dairy industry shake-up reached new levels Tuesday, Nov. 12 when Dean Foods, the nation’s largest milk bottler, filed voluntary Chapter 11 bankruptcy restructuring “for orderly and efficient sale.”

The announcement indicated that the sale of “substantially all” assets could most likely be to DFA as talks between the two parties have “advanced.”

The bankruptcy filing includes all Dean entities and holdings under one name — Southern Foods Group LLC d/b/a Dean Foods — in the bankruptcy court of the Southern District of Texas, where case judge David R. Jones signed an order the same day granting “complex Chapter 11 bankruptcy case treatment.”

The early morning announcement came just ahead of Dean’s scheduled third quarter earnings call, which was canceled, although Q3 SEC reports were filed. Dean Foods’ shares on the Stock Exchange have been halted.

A hearing of 17 motions — including provisions to pay for milk delivered in the 30 days prior to the bankruptcy filing — was slated for Wednesday afternoon, Nov. 13, where the judge granted Dean Foods’ request to pay “critical vendors” in order to continue operating during the Chapter 11 proceedings and sale.

In its pleadings, Dean specified the need to retain access to cash flow in order to pay suppliers and employees and other routine costs of doing business.

As for milk shipped after the Nov. 12 bankruptcy filing, new financing from existing lenders has been secured so that payments can be made going forward.

This is a court-supervised process, to which Dean Foods has filed a number of these customary motions seeking court authorization to continue to support its business operations, which includes paying for the milk. Dean states in the announcement that it expects to receive court approval for all of these requests and that it is officially filing bidding procedures with the court to conduct a sale.

“Our expectation, based on the motions Dean has filed and the hearing in Houston this afternoon (Nov. 13), that they will be allowed to pay for pre-petition milk shipments,” said PMMB chief counsel Doug Eberly in a Farmshine phone call Wednesday. He indicated that while any bankruptcy proceeding is unpredictable, the Board expects that the four Dean plants in Pennsylvania and the plants in other states, will continue operating and paying producers.

“This is a priority for the Board and our auditors to be out there first thing every two weeks when advance and final payments are due to make sure payments are made,” said Eberly. Pennsylvania’s Milk Securities Act administrated through the Pa. Milk Marketing Board ensures such auditing and bonding of milk dealers and handlers.

Not all states have this bonding protection; however, the motions before the bankruptcy court Nov. 13, if granted, would allow Dean to pay for the milk already shipped. Dean estimates having $100 million in commercial surety bonds, not enough to cover all of the payments to suppliers and employees and other required payments to continue operating, which is why there is an expectation that the motions that would allow the company to use cash on hand to do so would be uncontested and granted. Without this ability, the company would not be able to continue, the proceedings would become disorderly, and then no one’s interests would be ultimately served.

New financing to keep Dean operating

In order to keep the milk flowing, and to keep suppliers, vendors and employees paid in the future during the bankruptcy process, Dean has secured $850 million in new “debtor in possession” financial support on Nov. 11 from existing lenders, led by Rabobank.

Approximately half of the $850 million in new financing will be used to restructure current debt with those existing lenders and the other half, combined with cash on hand, would finance continued operations for nine months, including paying suppliers, vendors and employees “without interruption” as restructure and sale take place under Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection.

“Right now, it is business as usual for us,” notes Anne Divjak, vice president of government relations and external communications for Dean Foods in an email response to Farmshine Tuesday. “This means we are continuing to work with our raw milk suppliers so we can continue providing our customers an uninterrupted supply of dairy products.”

She notes that information about the restructuring is found at DeanFoodsRestructuring.com and additional information will be available from pleadings and motions as they are filed.

Will Dean assets be sold to DFA?

In announcing the bankruptcy filing, Dean Foods also announced it is engaged in “advanced discussions with Dairy Farmers of America, Inc. (DFA) regarding a potential sale of substantially all assets of the company.”

If the two parties reach agreement on terms of a sale, it would be subject to regulatory approval by the Department of Justice and the bankruptcy court and would be subject to higher or otherwise better offers in the bankruptcy, according to Dean announcements and statements made by DFA CEO Rick Smith in a letter to members, obtained by Farmshine Tuesday.

DFA’s largest customer

Dean Foods is DFA’s largest customer, according to Smith in his letter to DFA members, where he also indicated that DFA produces and delivers the vast majority of milk to Dean Foods.

According to the Chapter 11 bankruptcy docket, DFA is the third largest “non-insider” creditor owed $172.9 million.

In his letter to DFA members, Smith referenced this substantial amount owed to DFA as being for milk shipped prior to the bankruptcy filing, “You will receive milk checks without interruption, and milk will continue to be picked up as normal throughout this bankruptcy process,” Smith wrote.

In addition to pension funds and DFA as the top three creditors, others on the list of the top 30 “non-insider” creditors include USDA $16.8 million, Land O’Lakes $8.9 million, Saputo $8.9 million, California Dairies $7.4 million, Southeast Milk $6.5 million, and Select Milk Producers $6.2 million. Former Dean Foods CEO Ralph Scozzafava is also listed as a creditor for his unpaid employee severance of $5.4 million.

Smith explained that DFA has monitored Dean Foods’ financials closely and have “prepared for various scenarios to minimize the impact to DFA.” He also confirmed that DFA “decided to enter into discussions” about purchase of Dean’s assets.

Questions about how long DFA and Dean Foods have discussed potential sale of assets were unanswered, although previous reports indicate some level of discussion occurred prior to the bankruptcy filing and are now, according to Dean Foods, “advancing.”

Questions about how Dean Dairy Direct shippers would be handled in the event of a sale of assets to DFA, along with other questions, were not answered. Instead, a request for an interview was declined by DFA chief of staff Monica Massey, who responded to this reporter to say: “We will not be participating in an interview with you as, in the past, you have not been fair and balanced — or accurate — in your reporting.”

Dean Foods responded to questions to indicate their website will be updated frequently and their are frequently asked questions and answers there for producers and others, including a separate website devoted to the Dean restructure and sale.

As of mid-November, no Dean Direct shippers have reported any communication on any changes to their status as a result of these actions, and Dean’s spokesperson confirmed they are conducting “business as usual.”

At the root

Dean Foods had appointed a new CEO, Eric Beringause, on July 26, and then concluded a strategic review process announcing in September that a sale of the company would not be pursued, but instead work on other strategies as the company dealt with volume losses, contract losses and in the face of “rising commodity costs.”

Beringause, on the job less than four months, said in a public statement Tuesday that these actions “are designed to enable us to continue serving our customers and operating as normal as we work toward the sale of our business.”

He talked about Dean’s “strong operational footprint and distribution network, robust portfolio of leading national brands, extensive private label capabilities and 15,000 “dedicated employees.”

“Despite our best efforts to make our business more agile and cost-efficient, we continue to be impacted by a challenging operating environment, marked by continuing declines in consumer milk consumption,” Beringause said.

With a new management team in place, he noted that this bankruptcy for an orderly sale is the best path forward after taking a look at the challenges.

Look for more analysis in Milk Market Moos and stay tuned. Additional information is available at www.DeanFoodsRestructuring.com.

In addition, court filings and other information related to the proceedings are available on a separate website administered by Dean Food’s claims agent, Epiq Corporate Restructuring, LLC, at https://dm.epiq11.com/SouthernFoods, or by calling Epiq representatives toll-free at 1-833-935-1362.

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Value added? Or subtracted? DMI, DFA partner on new blend

Posted on August 16, 2019 by Agmoos

By Sherry Bunting, Farmshine, July 26, 2019

MINNEAPOLIS, Minn. – The news of DFA’s new Dairy Plus Blends – a half lactose-free low-fat milk / half plant-based beverage concoction broke mid-July. DFA’s Live Real Farms brand website showed Lund and Byerly’s stores as the place to buy the Dairy + Almond and Dairy + Oat, but a visit to two stores on the list at the Minneapolis city limits did not have the beverages in the dairy case – yet.

Looking at the packaging, a first impression is: Wow, why doesn’t 100% milk packaging look this good. If only the agencies managing mandatory milk promotion funds and dairy-farmer-owned co-ops put as much thought into packaging and marketing 100% Real Whole Milk as they do for a diluted “innovation,” imagine what could be accomplished!

A further examination of the new Dairy Plus Blends packaging brought this thought: Why use words such as “Purely Perfect” and “Original” for a blend, when such words would seem best reserved for marketing the actual original, purely perfect 100% Real Whole Milk that the DFA member-owner dairy farmers produce and that actually results in the dairy-checkoff promotion funds.

We asked DFA for some background. In fact, we sent 11 questions to DFA and to DMI communications staffs because we were aware that DFA’s Live Real Farms brand is part of a checkoff-supported partnership between DMI and DFA to innovate products in the fluid milk space under the auspices of DMI’s Innovation Center for U.S. Dairy.

We first wanted to know, why the blend? Why not just create an almond FLAVORED 100% real milk beverage? Because, after all, the new Dairy Plus Blends have half the calories, but they also have half the natural nutrients and only slightly more than half the protein of real 100% dairy milk.

It seemed like value was being subtracted, not added.

We all know that almond beverage has barely any almond in it, being mostly filtered water and some additives, so it seemed like the product is an offering of diluted milk. Since we couldn’t find any on the shelf yet at Lund and Byerly’s in Minneapolis, we aren’t sure if consumers will be asked to pay more – for less.

Of course, the packaging does have more. It touches all the right chords.

DFA was kind enough to answer some of our questions, although we have heard nothing back yet from DMI.

“In an effort to meet the demands of modern consumers, Live Real Farms has launched a new beverage, Dairy Plus Blends, which combines all the nutritional benefits of real cow’s milk with the flavor and texture of alternative beverage options like almond or oat,” stated Rachel Kyllo, senior vice president of growth and innovation at Live Real Farms, a DFA-owned brand.

The reply came by email to the questions we submitted.

“All the nutritional benefits of real cow’s milk”? (The label says 5 grams of protein per 8-ounce serving, not 8, and the other naturally occurring nutrients in real cow’s milk are also reduced.)

Kyllo continues in the reply:

“Nearly 50% of consumers who buy plant-based beverages also have dairy milk in the fridge, so they’re buying both products,” she writes. “This product is not about pivoting away from dairy, instead we saw an opportunity to fulfill a need as people like almond or oat drinks for certain things and dairy for others. This product combines the two into a new, different-tasting drink that’s still ultimately rooted in real, wholesome dairy.”

We wanted to know DMI’s part in developing this concept, seeing that dairy farmers mandatorily pay a checkoff promotion fee on every 100 pounds of milk they sell.

DFA’s response stated that, “The overall product concept for Dairy Plus Blends was developed along with DMI and the Innovation Center for U.S. Dairy. Consumer focus groups were conducted with Millennial and Gen X primary shoppers. Overall feedback was positive regarding the product concept, taste and packaging.”

We wanted to know more about how the product will roll out.

“Dairy Plus Blends are now being test marketed at more than 300 retail stores in Minnesota,” the DFA response stated. “If successful in test, the brand plans to roll out more broadly across the United States, beginning in the Central and Northeastern regions of the U.S.”

DFA has already been bottling plant-based alternatives in copacking arrangements in the Midwest. And, the Cumberland Dairy plant in New Jersey, formerly owned by the Catalana family, and purchased in 2017 by DFA, bottles plant-based beverages also as the Catalanas still operate the plant and retained ownership of their plant-based beverage investments.

We also wanted to know how the real dairy milk that makes up 50% of the new Dairy Plus Blends is classified for Federal Order pricing, but that question was not answered.

And, we wanted to know if DFA in its “partnership to innovate” with DMI has any plans to innovate the marketing and packaging of 100% Real Whole Dairy Milk in such a pleasing and attractive way as they have with the Dairy Plus Blends? That question was not answered either.

We also wondered if this “blend” will pull dairy milk drinkers as they hear all this talk about becoming “flexitarian” – cutting back on foods that come from cows and adding more foods that come from plants to, you know, save the earth and all.

Along these lines, DFA’s response attributed to Kyllo at Live Real Farms was: “We’re confident milk will continue to have a place on family tables for years to come, but we also understand and appreciate that consumers have choices in what they drink today. We think Dairy Plus Blends offer a refreshing taste experience and provides a unique way to get dairy in front of consumers who might explore other beverage options.”

We wonder if this is an invitation by a dairy-farmer-owned cooperative, funded in part by dairy-farmer-checkoff to lure consumers into experimenting with something new instead of dairy milk or will it appeal to people who have no intention of drinking 100% real dairy milk? It’s hard to tell, but it’s worth watching.

Some advocates of this kind of experimentation say that the fluid milk market needs more lactose-free choices. There are already lactose-free milk choices, there is also A2 for other types of digestive sensitivity, and there’s one thing everyone seems to be forgetting. Whole milk is more easily digested by people with these sensitivities. There’s actual real proof of this now, not just personal experience, but that’s a story for another day.

In this time of continued fluid milk sales losses, farm milk prices below breakeven for five years and dairy farms exiting the business, why does the dairy-checkoff not re-brand and re-market and innovate the packaging and promotion of Real 100% Whole Milk that is virtually 97% fat-free and loaded with natural goodness? Why not actually partner to innovate the brand-promotion MILK? What a novel idea!

Oops, that’s right. I think USDA lawyers would have a problem with that.

One thing that is impressive coming out of Live Real Farms is the Wholesome Smoothie line of Whole Milk yogurt smoothies last year. DFA says it plans to develop “a robust product line with the launch of additional, innovative products over the next three to five years.”

We’ll be paying attention to all of them.

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As producers struggle, cooperatives fumble: How is ‘excess milk’ determined to be a problem in deficit areas?

Posted on June 4, 2018 by Agmoos

By Sherry Bunting, updated from Farmshine, June 1, 2018

KENTUCKY — As the calendar turns to June, the saga of lost markets has meant a transition for some, exits for others, and in Kentucky, 14 producers who still faced May 31, 2018 contract terminations with Dean Foods were given a 30-day reprieve.

“It’s down to the wire and we’re working on a hail-Mary,” says Maury Cox, executive director of the Kentucky Dairy Development Council (KDDC). “We started with 19 affected producers, and we’re down to 14. Some have exited the business and we may lose a couple more.”

According to Cox, the KDDC and other state officials are still working, leaving no stone unturned, for these 14 producers, confirming on May 28 that Dean Foods did extend their contracts to July 1.

Five of the original 19 affected producers in Kentucky have sold their cows and a few others, like Curtis and Carilynn Coombs, are in the process of incrementally downsizing their herds as the termination approaches.

In southern Indiana where seven producers were unable to find a market, Doug Leman, executive director of Indiana Dairy Producers, indicates that some are drying off cows, others are selling, and one is getting into on-farm milk processing. There are a select few that have been offered 30-day Dean contract extensions, mainly because their contract renewal dates were different, and Dean could utilize the milk.

In Kentucky, there is the added and unusual situation of an 800-cow dairy not being able to move into their new 8-robot dairy barn because the processor receiving their milk classified the second location, two miles from the main barn, as a start up instead of an existing patron’s modernization project that in total represented a modest expansion.

As the new robot barn sits empty, and many contacts made with no takers, Kentucky dairy leaders scratch their heads at the gate-keeping that is going on — wondering how is it possible that these things are happening? That in a milk deficit region, just two loads of milk from 14 former Dean Dairy Direct farms — that now have until July 1 — can’t find a home? That in a milk-deficit region, this separate situation happens to a progressive dairy having to let their new completed barn sit empty and keep milking exclusively in the old facility, in order to keep their existing milk contract with another bottler?

All of this happening in a state that is part of the Southeast region that University of Wisconsin dairy economist Mark Stephenson says has a 41-billion-pound milk deficit in terms of production and consumers. And all of this happening in a state spanning two Federal Milk Marketing Orders (5 and 7) that regularly utilize transportation credits and diversions to move milk — bringing milk in from up to 500 miles away to meet the actual processing needs.

It doesn’t make sense. The movie playing-out in Kentucky could come to other theaters in the eastern U.S., and the previews are already being shown.

Repeated emails to Dean Foods went unanswered over the past two weeks as the company’s corporate communications director indicated by automatic reply that she is on “paid time off” until June 4.

Phone calls and emails to the communications department for the Kroger Company have also not been returned as Kroger bottles 100% of its store-brand milk at its own plants, including the Kroger Winchester Farms Dairy plant in Winchester, Kentucky, which is supplied by Select Milk Producers, Inc. and Dairy Farmers of America (DFA).

(Incidentally, a billboard popped up recently on I-65 North outside of Louisville, Kentucky –picturing Holstein dairy cows grazing and proclaiming Kroger as “proud to support Kentucky farmers”. What could this mean? As noted in this report, requests to Kroger’s communications department — to understand what these billboards mean and what percentage of milk in Kentucky Kroger stores actually comes from Kentucky farms — have gone unanswered.)

Prairie Farms recently announced it is closing a plant in Fulton, Kentucky and will operate a distribution point there. Prairie Farms and DFA own or supply other milk processing assets in the state and region.

Numerous sources outside the directly affected region indicate that Prairie Farms is working with Walmart to source milk and bottling for Walmart while the Fort Wayne plant start up is delayed . Prairie Farms, Great Lakes Milk Producers and Foremost Farms are the three cooperatives, along with Walmart’s independent milk contracts, meeting the single-source loads requirement for Walmart’s new plant in Fort Wayne, Indiana.

(Author’s note: While Walmart touts the milk for its new bottling plant, once fully operational, will come from within 180 miles of the Fort Wayne plant, the plant’s reach in Great Value bottled milk distribution will be much farther — up to 300 miles away where milk that is more ‘local’ to those Walmart stores in Kentucky and southern Indiana is displaced. So far, none of the cooperatives working with Walmart have taken on this southern milk.)

With Prairie Farms, Dairy Farmers of America (DFA), and Select Milk Producers all supplying milk processing operations in Kentucky, not one has agreed to take on the Dean-dropped dairy producers as members.

New members are a problem for Prairie Farms when their own members are on a quota system, and yet, the cooperative is working with other cooperatives and Walmart to source milk to supply a consumer need that was previously sourced from the dropped herds via the Dean plants.

As for other plants, even Bluegrass Dairy and Food, a dairy powders and ingredients company — with plants in Glasgow and Springfield, Kentucky balancing milk supplies in the region — is not exclusively owned by the local Williams family who founded it in 1995. The majority of the company was purchased in 2010 by a private investment firm. Sources indicate Bluegrass cannot accept the displaced milk from independent producers because they are completely co-op supplied and balance co-op milk at the two Kentucky plants as well as a third plant in Dawson, Minnesota.

When asked if DFA is taking new members, John Wilson, senior vice president and chief fluid marketing officer wrote in an email: “Our Area Councils monitor local milk marketing and manage membership decisions as well as other local issues. Membership decisions by this group of local dairy farmers are evaluated based on a number of factors, including an available market for milk, which continues to be out-of-balance in some areas of the country.”

On the Kentucky situation, specifically, Wilson said that, “We are concerned for family farms. We recognize the dairy farmers in Kentucky and southern Indiana who have been displaced face a tough situation. While there is excess milk in the area and finding a home for this milk will be a challenge, we are working with others to determine if we can provide any assistance.”

Follow up questions about how “excess milk” is determined to be a problem in a milk-deficit area, have not been answered. (Since publication, DFA’s John Wilson replied in an email that the “excess milk situation is really the region, not specifically Kentucky.” One can see why when comparing the DFA Area Council Map, above right, to the USDA Federal Order Area Map, above left… Note how in the above DFA Area Council Map, the lines are drawn with the navy blue of DFA’s Mideast Area Council dipping straight into the maroon of the deficit Southeast Area Council right through central Kentucky, for example, and it becomes apparent that the decisions can be weighted toward surplus transport between Orders within Area Councils and between them.)

After all, milk moves in mysterious (and not so mysterious) ways.

Meanwhile, of the over 100 dairy farms in eight states affected by the Dean contract terminations, it has been the willingness of smaller regional bottlers and smaller regional cooperatives to mobilize compassion, leadership and local marketing efforts to pick up the slack.

In Pennsylvania, it was localized (PA Preferred / Choose PA Dairy) bottlers like Schneider’s Dairy and Harrisburg Dairies that picked up many of the eastern and western Pennsylvania farms, with much of the balance being picked up by New York-based Progressive Dairymen’s Cooperative, marketing with United, a bargaining co-op covering both New York and Pennsylvania. Six Pennsylvania farms sold their cows.

In addition, one New York producer shipping to the Erie, Pennsylvania plant slated for closure, made his last shipment of milk on May 31 and sold his 150-cow herd and equipment, although he is hoping to rent the freestall barn he built a year ago.

In Tennessee, at least one farm exited, and all but one remaining were picked up by the new Appalachian Dairy Farmers Cooperative that is marketing to a bottler featuring local milk.

In northern Indiana, the farms with lost markets were picked up by two regional cooperatives Michigan Milk Producers and the Ohio-based Great Lakes Milk Producers.

In addition, with the new Class I Walmart plant in Fort Wayne, and the destabilization of fluid milk sales as U.S. population growth is not making up for declining per-capita fluid milk consumption, Dean plant closings are on the horizon. Sources indicate that Dean plans to close as many as seven plants by September but that no new producer-termination letters are expected in the near-term.

This level of Dean consolidation was mentioned in quarterly earning reports. However, Dean Foods has not publicly announced specific plant closings and repeated emails and calls to the Dallas-based company were not answered.

Three plant closings later this year have been confirmed by town authorities quoted in press reports.

One is the Garelick plant in Lynn, Mass.

Another is Dean’s Meadow Brook plant in Erie, Pennsylvania. The Erie Regional Chamber reported to Erie News Now that Dean intends to sell the Erie plant and transfer its bottling to the plant in Sharpsville, Pennsylvania while purchasing a smaller property in Erie for a distribution center.

The third reported Dean plant closure of an estimated seven to be announced is the Louisville, Kentucky plant where many of the Kentucky and Indiana farms that received contract-termination letters ship their milk.

Meanwhile, as Walmart’s new milk sourcing with the “Midwest supply-chain” gets underway ahead of its new Fort Wayne plant becoming fully operational, the 90 to 100 million gallons of milk per year (roughly 800 mil. lbs) are already being moved away from regional bottling and distribution channels to consolidated sourcing and distribution — with the biggest effects at the farthest edges of the new Fort Wayne plant service area, like Kentucky, where dropped producers are unable to find milk buyers.

There just does not appear to be any market access at other plants in the region without being members of cooperatives like DFA or Select or Prairie Farms, and despite multiple attempts by state dairy leaders, none of these three cooperatives have stepped up to accept the displaced producers as members.

As noted in a May 15 Farmshine report, the KDDC, Kentucky Department of Agriculture and the Governor’s Office of Ag Policy have all been involved in helping these farms find a solution.

It is not an issue of no processors for the milk. The issue is the gates to these processors are closed to these displaced independent producers because they are not already members of the cooperatives manning the gates.

In the most recent March/April edition of KDDC’s Milk Matters newsletter, president Richard Sparrow talked about the situation for these Kentucky dairy farms as “operating in a very limited, if not closed market, with few or maybe no options.”

In his Milk Matters president’s corner, Sparrow offers this commentary:

“It is a really sad commentary on the state of our dairy industry that all the major fluid milk processors in Kentucky have a large percentage of their day-to-day milk supply coming from farms hundreds of miles outside our state’s boundaries. Yet, at the same time, Kentucky dairy farm families can’t find a home for their milk,” writes Sparrow. “This situation did not happen overnight. It is not an oversupply problem or a quality problem. It is a marketing problem.”

KDDC executive director Maury Cox said in a phone interview that he did not want to be negative. However, when he looks at the whole picture of the market, the increased hauling and marketing fees, the quota programs and base-excess programs in this milk-deficit region, the amount of milk being sold $1.00 or more below mailbox price, and the effect of potentially losing these producers upon the infrastructure for remaining producers, he admits that it is difficult to see light at the end of the tunnel.

“They are putting us out,” he says. “I think we are looking at the complete demise of Kentucky’s dairy industry. I think that is what we are seeing.”

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Ag Moos

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Value added? Or subtracted? DMI, DFA partner on new blend

As producers struggle, cooperatives fumble: How is ‘excess milk’ determined to be a problem in deficit areas?

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