A3B-Lancastef Fanning, Saturday, April 27, 1991
GEORGE F.W. HAENLEIN
Extension Dairy Specialist
University of Delaware
NEWARK (Dela
ware) Recently, while eating
lunch at the local McDonalds, I
read the menu and made a discov
ery that startled me. Among other
things, the menu stated very prom
inently: New Carrots replace
cheese on garden and side salads
... fewer calories, less fat
Reading on, I noted they still
offer “regular” cheese biscuits,
“regular” cheeseburgers, quarter
pounder with “regular” cheese,
and pizza with “regular” cheese,
but everything else is now changed
to lowfat lowfat shakes, lowfat
frozen yogurt and 1 percent milk!
Yet the one item that really hit
home was “carrots replace
cheese.”
Now, if I were simply a diet
conscious consumer, this menu
item replacement would probably
make sense. Some people may
even say this kind of change is long
overdue. However, I am a dairy
farmer, and this newly announced
company policy on food offerings
raises some concern.
As a dairy farmer, my income
and that of many suppliers from
whom I buy comes primarily from
the sale of milk, half of which usu
ally goes into the manufacture of
cheese, yogurt, shakes, etc. So the
volume of manufacture of these
dairy products affects my
pockelbook.
If more cheese is made and sold,
my price per 100 pounds of milk
from the farm goes up, but if less
cheese is sold, a surplus may
occur, resulting in a drop in milk
price. This is simple economics,
the law of supply and demand.
In recent months, dairy farmers
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in this region have seen drastic
drops in the milk price on the
farm about 30 percent!
No doubt this means supply is
exceeding demand in the regional
marketplace, yet my cows con
tinue to produce at the same level
and have to be milked every day,
twice a day. My bills for electrici
ty, fuel, gas, taxes, buildings,
repair, mortgage, etc., continue to
come in regardless of whether milk
supply in the market is more or less
than market demand.
If a major company like McDo
nalds changes from cheese to car
rots in part of its menu, this means
a lot of cheese in the market is all
of a sudden without a buyer.
Is this just the beginning? Will
other restaurant chains and compa
nies reduce the purchase of real
cheese or maybe one day stop buy
ing it altogether, replacing it, say,
with a soybean imitation cheese?
Is a major change in the making?
In the equation of supply versus
demand often we have tended to
look first at supply. For example, a
couple of years ago we killed a lot
of cows to reduce milk supply
surplus. And we started a IS
ccnts/100 pounds of farm milk
deduction campaign to promote
the demand side of milk.
Apparently, though, we are far
from having made major gains in
the market, given McDonald's
menu announcement that they are
replacing cheese with carrots. This
could very well “kill” many more
cows in order to bring the equation
into balance,‘unless we, the dairy
farmers and processors, change
also.
Or should we? Are we supposed
to become more market-oriented
in our production procedures and
in the promotion of positive health
Really Replace Cheese?
information about our products? Is
this where greater profitability lies
for the future of the dairy farmer?
Some years ago many of us were
convinced that there was nothing
better than a glass of Golden
Guernsey milk. But what hap
pened to it in the marketplace?
Somehow the market has asked for
more of another kind of milk: the
big winner in recent years was and
is the 2 percent milk, for which we
dairy farmers have been unable to
breed a cow. Or have we been
unwilling to try such a change?
Consider other products in the
marketplace, like beer for instance.
Whoever proved it is as good for
you as milk? But beer advertise
ments successfully make you
believe that you feel good after
drinking beer (and that includes
me!).
Beer manufacturers have even
changed to “light”-labeled beer, to
appeal to diet-conscious consum
ers. Possibly one of the differences
between dairy farmers and brewe
ries is that dairy farmers only pro
duce but do not process, nor do
they devise new processing
methods and gimmicks to establish
a stronger niche in the marketp
lace. Breweries, on the other hand,
respond more quickly and easily to
what the market wants, because
they are both producers AND
processors.
At the recent annual meeting of
our Philadelphia-based Dairy
Council, which is affiliated with us
dairy farmers, a significant change
in policy was announced: Become
more market-oriented and inform
consumers about the product's
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qualities that will promote sales.
This leaves us dairy fanners in a
dilemma. Presumably we are not
producing what the majority of the
market wants or, at least, not much
of it. What can we do? Is it time to
change?
Senator Leahy's group recently
tried a legislative solution, one
which would have solved neither
the market supply nor the demand
problems. It might well have
aggravated the situation, except
for an idea that has worked well on
the West Coast for some time:
increase solids contents in milk,
even in 2 percent milk, to a mini
mum of 10 percent. Xhis is long
overdue here, and incidently, the
dairy farm business on the West
Coast is flourishing.
Now, as we agonize over how
best to find a solution to our mark
etplace problems, there comes
along some unexpected good
news. In recent years, in fact since
the medical findings that milk
drinkers and cheese eaters have
less colon cancer, fewer dental
cavities and less old-age bone
deterioration, encouraging news
about milk has been rare.
Now, a 10-year British Medical
Research Council study of 4,200
middle-aged men from the urban
area of Bristol and the rural areas
of Wales and conducted at the
Llandough Hospital, has found
that those men who drank milk
every day had significantly fewer
heart attacks.
Ten percent of the men studied
who had heart attacks did not drink
milk, 6.3 percent who drank 1/2
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pint milk every day had heart
attacks and 5.8 percent who drank
1 pint of milk a day had heart
attacks. Only 1.2 percent who
drank more than a daily pint of
milk had heart attacks.
Furthermore, a comprehensive
nutrition study reveals that butter
eaters had half the number of heart
attacks of those eating margarine.
The research conclusion was that “
... it is a popular myth that con
suming animal fat is bad for the
heart This study found nothing to
connect the two.”
So, what am I saying? Should
we change our cows and our milk
production procedures to become
more market-oriented? Maybe and
maybe not.
The market interests are dynam
ic and change faster than we can
change our cows, but processing
methods can and should become
more market-oriented. This would
help both consumers and dairy far
mers. Certainly, it would stimulate
consumption if the 30perccnt
recent price drop at the dairy farm
had been parallelled in the grocery
store!
As representatives to our milk
marketing and promotion agencies
who spend our 15-cents-per
-100-pounds-milk promotion
checkoff, we should ask for a grea
ter percentage of this money to go
to more medical research for this
kind of information. In the long
run, this is the most powerful
promotion of milk and cheese, and
we ought to spread this good news
widely.
iw Thru May 31, 1991
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