Dairy On The Go Vs The Competition

There was an interesting piece from Tom Gallagher in Hoard's Dairyman on the decline of milk sales over the last 30 years and how to change it. One of the quotes that jumped out at me was this one:

Away from home meal consumption stands at 30 percent, compared to just 16 percent in the late 1970s. Additionally, 48 percent of consumers' food expenditures are now spent on food away from home.

--Tom Gallagher, CEO of DMI., from We must work together to fix fluid milk  Hoard's Dairyman December 2012 

I knew anecdotally that people ate out more today, but I had not read any statistics on it. Also I wonder about a link between the 48% of food sales away from home and obesity. I know when I eat on the go rarely do I eat as healthy as I might at home. If I'm traveling by myself then I often eat cheaply in a frugal manner.

Dairy products in the marketplace purchased on the go are lacking compared to other options. For example, you're driving home and decide to stop for a quick snack. Most fast food places have ice cream or milkshakes as a dessert item, but how often can you choose from yogurt, cheese, or plain milk for a snack? I more often stop at gas stations to grab a bite. The dairy cooler is usually limited to gallons or half gallons of milk and a few flavors of one size single servings.

Dairy Cooler at a Gas Station:  1/2 of one door

Pepsi, Coke, and the juice makers have all kinds of selections. How much do you want to drink? They have sizes from less than 12 oz, to 12 oz, 20 oz, and even bigger single servings. (Of course, if you drink the larger sizes it won't be long before you have to stop again!) Then you have all kinds of flavors to choose from and within those you can choose on calorie and caffeine content. So they have oodles and oodles of selections versus dairy's white, chocolate, or strawberry offerings.

It is no wonder that consumers walk past the plain milk cooler. Obviously, some stores offer more dairy options such as ice cream and mix your own milkshake machines, but even with those it still doesn't compare to the alternatives.

My friend, Randy, disagrees with me on this as far as grocery stores go. He points out that you can buy most any size of milk you want in different flavors, fat content, and production methods. He says that the high quality of milk as a product should sell itself and maybe consumers only need a reminder of all the good it has.

What would make you excited about a dairy purchase on the go? What makes you choose a coke and a candy bar over a milkshake?

Handy Hints for Hoard's

In every issue of Hoard's Dairyman they have a section labeled Handy Hints. The hints are sent in by the readers and they demonstrate some neat idea they had and then implemented on their farm. The other day on Twitter I mentioned to Hoard's that I thought one of the current hints was not up to their usual high standards. Eventually I was challenged to send in a hint of my own.

I gave this some thought and realized that not all of the ideas we've had and tried on our farm have always turned out as well as we had hoped.

Hair Dryers in the Milking Parlor

Cows, like many other females spend a lot of time grooming, and this may cause them to be late to work, or in their case late for one of their milkings. Why not install beauty salon hair dryers in the parlor and then they would have no reason to be late? Two birds with one stone, right?

Wrong. The cows actually ended up primping more in the parlor and took too long to be milked. The dryers also were not as industrially strong as advertised and had a very short life span.

Starbucks For the Cows

Sometimes you just need a pick-me-up and a little bit of caffeine might go a long ways. We thought some caffeine might stimulate the cows to produce more milk so we opened a tab for them at the local Starbucks coffee house. 

The results were mixed as far as milk production goes and we would love to have Dr. Sheila McGuirk, who writes a column in the magazine, to weigh in on it. We ended stopping this particular project due to the expanding cost of the tab the cows were leaving us. We could not afford it anymore.

Dry Erase Boards

We have found that having dry erase boards around on the farm are very handy. This particular one is kept were the cows eat silage and has due dates on it for our pregnant cows. When those cows are eating you can easily reference the board and take any action required. 

We also have two in our calf barn to keep track of which calf is in each stable and to leave notes for the next feeding. 

Very handy indeed for any size dairy farm and makes it my response to the challenge.