Dairy Checkoff Delivers Results

Dairy Checkoff Delivers Results. I’m Greg Martin with today’s Line On Agriculture.

Before getting into broadcasting a great many years ago, I began my adult working career in the pizza industry. First as a pizza cook and then into management. I still to this day love to put together a delicious pizza with fresh ingredients and mounds of cheese. But what does this all have to do with agriculture you may be asking yourself. Nearly one thousand farmers and dairy industry leaders are gathered in San Diego this week for the joint annual meeting of farmer-funded dairy promotion groups. On the agenda is a review of dairy checkoff programs and their results over the past year. Up until mid-2009, the pizza category, which accounts for 25 percent of u.s. cheese consumption, was in a sales decline. Now, Tom Gallagher of Dairy Management Inc, which manages the national dairy checkoff, reports that following checkoff partnerships with pizza companies such as domino’s, pizza cheese sales have staged a turn-around.

GALLAGHER: Once we started working with the pizza industry, and our strategy took hold, here’s what the change was: From July of 2009 to July of 2011, pizza cheese consumption increased almost 390 million pounds. Think about that, that’s an enormous turnaround of a category that was really starting to slide downhill.

Beyond pizza, Gallagher says other dairy sales results are also strong. For example, a three-year partnership with McDonald’s has helped make that chain a dairy destination.

GALLAGHER: In the three years that we’ve worked with McDonald’s, consumption of dairy products at just McDonald’s, has increased over 1.7 billion pounds, that’s milk, cheese, yogurt and other dairy products. And obviously, when McDonald’s does something, all the other quick serve restaurants follow, so the catalytic effect is just
enormous.

Gallagher told farmers meeting in san diego these kinds of partnerships demonstrate that the dairy checkoff is working to increase sales of milk and dairy products.

GALLAGHER: Farmers are very proud of these results that we’ve had in changing the pizza category and in helping to grow dairy at quick serve restaurants.

That’s today’s Line On Agriculture. I’m Greg Martin on the Ag Information Network.