Dairy farm familiesof the Southeast

Dairy Promotion News

May 2015

Sometimes when I talk to my dairy farmer neighbors

about all the good things happening with their checkoff dollars, they talk about the “black hole of promotion.” They don’t see their money being spent and don’t know how it’s being used.

I tell them that promotion is far from being a black hole. I ask them to think about their promotion programs like an iceberg – they can see the tip of the iceberg with more milk, cheese and yogurt menu listings at their local McDonald’s, Taco Bell and Domino’s, for example, but the majority of the work is under that tip of the iceberg:

• The U.S. Dairy Export Council, which you help fund, ended last year moving 15 percent of U.S. milk production, or 10.2 billion pounds of milk or milk equivalent. That helps raise the Class IV price, which helps the pay price of every dairy farmer in the country.

• Our school programs resulted in two million more school breakfasts being served last year, not only nourishing children and improving test scores, but also moving 160 million more pounds of milk.

• Our global research plan brings in dollars from groups all over the world to focus on our research priorities. Farmers put in $10 million, and partners put a total of $70 million. These priorities include the milkfat research that is helping to grow whole milk sales – the first time

Changing the ‘Black Hole’ to ‘Just the Tip of the Iceberg’

by Glen Easter, SUDIA Board

President

Good News for Milk from Initial Dietary Guidelines Report

In February, the Dietary Guidelines Advisory Committee released the new scientific report with initial recommendations, which will, after public comment and additional discussion, form the 2015 Dietary Guidelines for Americans.

Why does this matter to the dairy industry? As SUDIA President Glen Easter shared during the 2015 Annual Meeting in March, “11.5 percent of the milk produced in this country goes through a government program and those programs have to meet the Dietary Guidelines [criteria].”

The National Dairy Council was at the forefront of this report and submitted 14 sets of written comments and even testified in person before the Committee. The comments covered a wide variety of topics, including new dairy fat research.

The Dietary Guidelines Advisory Committee continued to put emphasis on low-fat and nonfat milk and promoted fluid milk consumption as part of a well-balanced diet. Other initial recommendations from the scientific report and their impact on dairy can be found below:

The coffee market is a wonderful growth opportunity for milk because there are so many dairy-containing specialty coffee Continues on Page 4

Let’s StayConnected

In an effort to provide our dairy farmers with important information, we are updating our contact database. Please visit

southeastdairy.org/contactupdates to fill out a form.

Nutrients of ConcernThe report lists the main nutrients of concern, or nutrients not being consumed in sufficient

amounts by Americans, as vitamin D, calcium, potassium and fiber. Milk remains the number one food source of three (vitamin D, calcium

and potassium) of these four nutrients of concern.

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DAIRY Promotion News

SUDIA has partnered with the Mississippi Department of Education to sponsor the

Mississippi Breakfast Challenge, encouraging schools to implement

innovative strategies to increase breakfast participation and

consumption of milk and yogurt. Breakfast increases will be

measured in the fall to determine the challenge winners.

St. Stephen’s Elementary School in New Orleans was one of three

Louisiana schools honored by the New Orleans Saints and SUDIA for its commitment to school breakfast and student fitness. In December, the school took first place in the

New Orleans Saints’ “Fuel Up Like a PRO” breakfast contest, receiving $3,000 to go toward school health

and wellness efforts.

During October, the state-wide Rise Up Fuel Up breakfast contest challenged Georgia

school districts to increase school breakfast participation and milk consumption. The four first place winners – Bibb, Liberty, Thomas and Upson Counties, as well as Mohamed Schools of Atlanta –

increased breakfast participation by 17 percent or 5,740 units of

milk.

Southeastern State UpdateAlabama

Louisiana

South Carolina

Georgia Kentucky

Mississippi

Tennessee

North Carolina

Virginia

Thirty-nine new Alabama schools increased their breakfast

participation and milk sales through Expanding Breakfast

programs, such as Grab ‘N Go and Breakfast in the Classroom, raising the total to 216 schools statewide now selling breakfast and dairy

products outside of the classroom and increasing milk sales.

Greenville County, Richland One, and Beaufort County school

districts are serving up breakfast at “break-neck” speed! These counties

have used mobile equipment provided by SUDIA grants to serve students snacks powered by milk at

the bus loop, in the classroom, or from a Grab ‘N Go kiosk.

SUDIA staff has partnered with Kentucky Cooperative Extension

Service to empower teenage 4-Hers to implement FUTP60 in their own school and serve as Healthy Living Mentors for elementary schools. Healthy

Living Mentors encourage school staff members to become Program

Ambassadors and participate in Fuel Up to Play 60.

In April 2015, SUDIA played an active role in the Weight of

the State conference by hosting a Grab’N Go style breakfast

and sharing best practices in a breakout session. Dr. Bob Murray

served as a keynote speaker to stress the link between breakfast, dairy consumption, overall health

and academic success.

In Metro-Davidson schools, milk consumption in October

2014 compared to October 2013 increased 56 percent, with over 472,000 additional half pints

sold. Hume-Fogg High Academic Magnet High School in Nashville won Tennessee’s “Milk: The Titan of Breakfast” contest, increasing milk consumption by 74 percent!

SUDIA and No Kid Hungry NC held a statewide breakfast

challenge to encourage and assist schools in starting innovative programs to enhance school

breakfast participation, which increases dairy sales. Eighty-six out of 115 North Carolina school districts and 1,584 total schools

participated in the challenge.

In addition to securing more than $500 million in partnerships at the end of 2014, Dairy

Management, Inc. (DMI) has continued working with other valuable dairy partners to increase dairy sales across the country.

One of the more notable vendors increasing dairy sales is McDonald’s. Last year, McDonald’s agreed to increase dairy sales by automatically including low-fat

dairy in each Happy Meal by offering Go-Gurt as a side item and having milk as the default beverage. Since launching Go-Gurt in July 2014,

sales have skyrocketed and nearly 5 million tubes of Go-Gurt are sold weekly at McDonald’s.

Additionally, McDonald’s is committed to touting the nutrition benefits of milk on product

packaging and on in-store signage, which will be making their debut nationwide in 2015.

Another valuable dairy partner is Domino’s, who promotes the dairy industry by providing cheesy pizzas and informational pizza boxes. Since 2009, Domino’s has increased annual cheese purchases by 22.5 percent while also increasing sales by nearly 7 percent. Domino’s pizza boxes honor dairy by thanking the lovely ladies who help them make their pizza – dairy cows. Domino’s customers can learn about various types of cheese, as well as meet Domino’s dairy cows - named Stella, Edna, Abigail, Estelle and Nancy – by reading the pizza box lid. Over six million pizza boxes are in the hands of consumers every week, equating to over 180 million impressions since the new box launched in 2014.

CaffeineFor the first time in history, the

advisory committee included and gave a green light to caffeine

consumption due to its health benefits, including decreased

risk of type 2 diabetes and heart disease.

drinks available since the average coffee drinker drinks more than 2 cups per day. In fact, 75 percent of coffee drinkers prefer a specialty coffee drink over a regular cup of coffee. In addition, 86 percent of the regular coffee drinkers add some form of dairy, such as milk, cream or half and half, to their cup of joe.

In addition to dairy consumption being associated with decreased risk of heart disease, diabetes and obesity, when real cow’s milk is replaced by a milk alternative, the levels of vital nutrients - specifically, calcium, magnesium, iron, vitamin A, riboflavin, potassium and vitamin D - fall below recommended levels.

The final version of the 2015 Dietary Guidelines for Americans will be released at the end of this year, but this scientific report gives us a glimpse into what it will contain. Based on this advisory committee report, it appears likely that the guidelines will continue to support dairy, particularly milk, in the diets of Americans.

Milk AlternativesThe committee took milk alternatives head on

in their report and their findings were quite favorable towards cow’s milk.

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Partnership Update: McDonald’s and Domino’s Increase Dairy Distribution

Domino’s boxes thank cows, fondly named Stella, Edna, Abigail, Estelle and Nancy, for contributing to their pizza.

‘June Dairy Month’ Encourages Consumers to Get More With Milk

June as National Dairy Month began in 1937 to celebrate America’s dairy

farmers and encourage consumers to drink more milk. This summer consumers across the Southeast will be encouraged to “Get More With Milk.” SUDIA plans on celebrating across the Southeast by hosting dairy nights at minor-league baseball games, visiting town festivals and participating in Summer Feeding programs.

This year SUDIA will be launching a digital campaign, targeting consumers

online when looking for dairy-packed recipes or information about the dairy industry. This year also marks

the 100th anniversary of the National Dairy Council, who plans on targeting

consumers with nation-wide campaigns. For more information on June Dairy Month, please visit us at www.junedairymonth.org

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we’ve seen an increase in decades.• The Innovation Center for

U.S. Dairy, which the checkoff provides staff for, has had a key role in bringing in $10 million in USDA sustainability grants to dairy farmers. It has also held food safety trainings for small cheese makers to fend off contamination problems that can give us all a black eye.

• Your checkoff program helped change the National Collegiate Athletic Association’s food guidelines to allow chocolate milk as an unrestricted beverage. We’ve worked with 38 colleges and universities in the Southeast to place 150 pieces of cooling equipment to promote chocolate milk in athletic departments, cafeterias and campus stores.

• Six of the seven new national partnerships to revitalize

fluid milk are with companies that directly affect Southeast dairy farmers and Southeast consumers. These companies are investing half a billion dollars in new plant equipment, new products and more marketing to stop the decline in fluid milk sales.

So, while we continue to grow per capita dairy demand every year, we are working to do more, especially on the fluid milk side. The work isn’t always obvious and visible, but it is vital, and an effective and efficient use of your dollars. Let’s change that vision of “the black hole of promotion” to what you see is “just the tip of the iceberg.”

Third-generation dairy farmer Glen Easter and his wife Marilyn reside in Laurens, S.C. where they milk more than 300 Jerseys on 360 acres.

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