Milk on a Mission

/

Meet the Kemps giving cow. This happy bovine is more than a smiling face on a carton. She represents kids in need getting a nutritious snack they might not otherwise have.

Since June, The Giving Cow Project, a hunger awareness campaign launched by Kemps, has committed to provide a carton of shelf-stable milk to kids in need for every gallon of Kemps Select and Kemps Milk purchased, up to 500,000 cartons. Partnering with Feeding America® Eastern Wisconsin, Second Harvest Heartland, Food Bank of Iowa and Greater Chicago Food Depository, the donations will go to food shelves and backpack programs in Minnesota, Wisconsin, Iowa and Illinois.

Kemps is a household name in the Midwest, providing wholesome dairy products like milk, ice cream and cultured products to communities since 1914, and actively works to give back to the local community.

“Families served by food shelves often receive less than one gallon of milk per person per year,” says Rebecca Heagney, director of marketing for Kemps. “For that to happen right where we are — in the heart of America’s dairy country — we wanted to fix that. We wanted to do something about getting nutritious milk to those families and kids who don’t have access to it.”

“Families served by food shelves often receive less than one gallon of milk per person per year.”
— Rebecca Heagney

Food banks list milk as one of their most requested but least donated items. Because milk requires refrigeration, food banks struggle to store and distribute this grocery staple. Access to nutritious milk is vital for families in need because they often turn to less healthy foods that cost less, have a longer shelf life and can stretch over multiple meals.

Enter the Giving Cow carton. These eight-ounce airtight cartons of 2 percent milk don’t require refrigeration and will stay fresh for up to a year — much longer than the typical shelf life of milk, which is 14 days after processing. Made by pasteurizing milk at a higher temperature and packaging it in an airtight container to prevent bacteria from growing, shelf-stable milk still offers the same nutrients, vitamins and goodness of regular milk.

Giving Cow cartons help bridge the nutrition gap for kids who depend on reduced breakfast and lunch programs at school. Besides stocking food bank shelves, the Giving Cow cartons will also get stuffed into kids’ backpacks through local backpack programs. Backpack programs fill kids’ bags with nutritious meals and snacks to help them get enough to eat over the weekend.

“We are so grateful for this generous donation,” says Julie Vanhove, Feeding Minnesota sourcing manager with Second Harvest Heartland. “Kemps is a valuable partner in our fight to feed the one in eight children in our service area and Minnesota who experience hunger.”

The cute carton was designed with kids in mind. “Often, food banks will receive food or donations in blank packaging,” Heagney says. “Our Giving Cow adds a little more fun and personality to delight the little ones.” But you won’t find these cartons on store shelves, they’re only available for local kids in need.

Want to help? If your grocery store stocks Kemps, grab a gallon of milk or pick out a Kemps Simply Crafted ice cream. Unlike other give back programs, The Giving Cow Project doesn’t require any extra work, like sending in UPC codes or receipts. Simply buy a gallon and Kemps will donate the giving cow cartons to the kids who need them most.

When thinking about how to give back to its community, Kemps considered a monetary donation. “We liked the giving cow cartons because we’re giving back something that there’s a need for, we’re filling a gap for kids in need and it’s something we believe in,” Heagney says. “We believe this is a nutritious product that offers all the vitamins and nutrition of regular milk, and we liked the idea of connecting this to our purpose of nourishing families.”

Milking a Trend

/

The dairy case has gotten bigger in the past few years, but the real estate isn’t taken up by more gallon jugs. Plant-based dairy alternatives, like almond beverage, have hit the mainstream and are gaining in popularity. From lower calorie counts in unsweetened varieties to lactose-free label claims, more people are picking up alternative “milks” on their weekly shopping trips.

As consumers continue to purchase dairy alternatives, the dairy industry is dedicated to bridging the gap between real milk and plant-based alternatives.

The Live Real Farms brand started as a smoothie line, and recently entered the fluid milk category with a product the market has never seen before. Meet Live Real Farms Dairy Plus Milk Blends. A purposeful blend of 50% real milk and 50% plant-based beverage.

“This product line was built to be disruptive in the market,” says Eric Loper, general manager of Live Real Farms, a Dairy Farmers of America (DFA)-owned brand, which launched Dairy Plus Milk Blends as a dual effort with Dairy Management Inc. (DMI).

While a product that combines dairy milk with its top competitor seems taboo, innovations like Dairy Plus is needed to find more ways into consumers’ fridges and increase consumption of fluid milk. Even if that means playing in a space that’s never been pioneered before.

“We are aiming to capture those who are considering migrating from fluid milk to plant-based beverages and to invite those consumers who have already made the move and are missing the nutritional benefits fluid milk once provided them,” Eric says. “The greatest concern we hear from these consumers is missing the protein and calcium from fluid milk. Dairy Plus Milk Blends offers a great tasting, balanced nutrition option for them to consider.”

“The goal of this product isn’t to take away from fluid milk. We are targeting the duel consumer that is purchasing both dairy milk and a plant-based alternative, and giving them an option that can fit their whole family.”
— Shelly Groesnick

With a goal to innovate beyond the jug and attract today’s consumer, the brand’s product line has four flavors of dairy milk blended with almond beverage — original, unsweetened vanilla, vanilla and chocolate — and one flavor — original — blended with oat beverage.

“Almond was pretty easy as it’s the largest portion of the plant universe at about 70% market share,” Eric says. “For the secondary plant-based option, oat is really on trend as one of the fastest growing alternatives.”

Beyond leveraging popular blends and similar label claims like lactose-free, Dairy Plus Milk Blends brings the nutritional value of real dairy to the table. With five grams of protein per serving, a cup of Dairy Plus has five times the protein as traditional almond beverages.

“We’re a consumer-first brand with the foundation of always needing to set up our innovation and activities to support the dairy farmers who own the Cooperative (DFA),” says Eric. And that foundation is part of every half-gallon carton. The milk that goes into each Dairy Plus flavor is from local DFA family farms and distributed from DFA-owned Kemps’ Farmington, Minn., plant.

“I am fascinated by the innovative steps agriculture as a whole has taken to make our food new and exciting,” says DFA family farm-owner Shelly Groesnick. “But also keep up with the growing demands of younger generations who crave adventure, convenience and nutrition.

“Dairy Plus Milk Blends seems to be a product that can fit that bill and it contains 50% milk — bonus for us in the dairy industry,” Shelly says. Dairy Plus Milk Blends just wrapped up its test market of Minnesota and is expanding throughout the Midwest through the end of 2019 in known retailers like Roundy’s, HyVee and Target — to name a few.

“We are performing above our expectation,” Eric says. “The chocolate-flavored Dairy Plus Almond, by surprise, is our most popular flavor, and we look forward to increasing those sales, distribution and eventually, the product line.”

Come 2020, you will also be able to pick up a half gallon in Texas grocers like HEB and United.

While traditional fluid milk is still the main star of the show, Dairy Plus Milk Blends brings a new look to the stage with the nutrition and goodness of real dairy.

A Story of “and”

/

Milk powder might not be as glamorous as chunks of gorgeous Gouda on a charcuterie board, but it represents a lot of good. The good nutrition packed into a storable product. The good of paying farmers for their labor. The good of reducing waste as sustainability becomes more important every day. Milk powder is packed full of good, and it’s impactful.

Dairy powder plants are one stop milk might make on its way to your table. And while making cheese might seem more interesting than evaporating water, dairy powder plants allow milk to have a long, productive life. These processing facilities create powder from milk produced by local farmers — offering the world affordable, shelf-stable nutrition while providing a consistent home for milk, even when local milk markets are saturated. They impact not only the world’s hungry, but also the farmers who feed them.

Global impact

Michael Lichte might be dairy powder’s biggest fan. He’s the vice president of sales and operations planning for the Ingredient Solutions division at Dairy Farmers of America (DFA) — the sixth-largest milk marketing cooperative in the world — so he knows a little something about dairy powder and the plants that process it each and every day.

“Powder plants are a story of ‘and,’” Michael says. “They create manufacturing capacity for dairy nutrition that processes large volumes of our members’ milk and they can aid in bringing balance to local milk markets.

So what does it mean to create manufacturing capacity for DFA’s family farm-owners? Why not just make more fresh dairy products with the milk they produce?

“Powder plants provide an efficient way to deliver value to our members by processing the milk they produce, even if the demand for fresh dairy products isn’t there.”
— Michael Lichte

“Inherently, milk marketing is trying to match supply and demand,” Michael explains.

If people aren’t buying fresh dairy products like yogurt or cheese fast enough, it can spoil. But to keep their cows happy and comfortable, farmers need to milk them several times per day. And they have to send that milk somewhere, whether consumers are buying cheese or not. Supply and demand are never perfectly balanced because they depend on consumers’ buying habits and farmers’ milk production.

“But powder plants provide an efficient way to deliver value to our members by processing the milk they produce, even if demand for fresh dairy products isn’t there,” Michael says.

These facilities remove water from the milk, creating powder that stays fresh for up to two years without refrigeration. It’s lightweight and contains milk fat, protein, amino acids and other nutrients like you find in liquid milk, but stays fresh longer, is easier to store and is more affordable to transport relative to liquid dairy products.

In this way, dairy powder plants provide a way for people around the world to feed their families — 60% of the milk powder DFA produces is exported. That means families without access to refrigeration — due to poverty or lack of a reliable electrical grid (and likely both) — can still get the dairy nutrition they need by purchasing high quality U.S. milk powder in economical packets. It’s more cost effective than liquid milk and still contains the nutrition they need. It allows us to move dairy into parts of the world that most need it.

In the kitchen

You might be wondering what else you can do with powdered dairy products. 

“It has a lot of diversity,” Michael says. “It will go into secondary manufacturing for consumer-packaged dairy products like infant formula, yogurt, ice cream or cottage cheese.” Also some of those decadent chocolatey desserts you love.

Dairy powder plants create ingredients that can be used in different forms with varying levels of protein, milk fat and water, which determine its best use. Here are a few you might recognize:

  • Nonfat dry milk — chocolate dairy drinks (no, they don’t come from brown cows)

  • Whole milk powder — whipped topping for your favorite pie

  • Buttermilk powder — dips and dressings to dunk those veggies

  • Cheese powder — macaroni’s best friend

  • Yogurt powder — turns raisins into something your kid will snack on

Making the most of waste

Dairy is known for reusing things you might think are at the end of their lifecycles. For instance, the citrus pulps, cottonseeds and stale taco shells farmers incorporate into their cows’ nutrition plans are used to make milk. The byproduct of those byproducts — manure — is used to make fertilizer and energy.

So it should come as no surprise that the dairy industry is making the most of waste in processing facilities as well.  

“Liquid whey is a byproduct of cheesemaking,” Michael says.

But instead of throwing it out, it’s transformed into something else. “It can be dried as whey powder and used in ice cream, beverages or cheese powders,” he says. “You can also really concentrate the protein to make protein bars or the recovery drinks athletes use after a workout.”

The good created at dairy powder plants seems endless. And we’re all benefiting, from the cooks looking to liven up a dish, to children with no access to refrigeration and all of us sharing the planet.