Category: dairy

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Borden Dairy Declared Bankruptcy and Is the Second Milk Seller to do so in Two Months

Two of the most recognized names in milk and dairy have recently declared bankruptcy: Dean Foods declared bankruptcy back in November, and Borden Dairy, one of the oldest milk processors in America, just recently did the same.

The rising cost of raw milk and a drop in consumer demand have been cited as reasons for both companies to take this drastic action. Borden will remain in business while it goes through its bankruptcy proceedings, which is a bit of good news for the 3,300 employees of the company that is based in Dallas, Texas.

Tony Sarsam, the CEO of Borden, said, “Despite our numerous achievements during the past 18 months, the Company continues to be impacted by the rising cost of raw milk and market challenges facing the dairy industry. These challenges have contributed to making our current level of debt unsustainable.”

The U.S. Department of Agriculture says that Americans drank 18.4% less milk from 2008 to 2018. At the same time, there has been a dramatic increase in sales in nut and plant-based milk. It may seem hard to imagine, but in 2019 alone, 2,700 dairy farms went out of business. There’s no denying that the entire American dairy industry is struggling mightily.

Vallotton's Dairy Farm

Borden was founded all the way back in 1857. It was the first company to use glass bottles for milk and was also the first company that developed a patent for condensing milk.

The times sure do seem to be changing, don’t they?

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Millions of Americans Think Chocolate Milk Comes From Brown Cows

I’ve never thought about the fact that people over the age of 5 might think strawberry, chocolate, and regular milks come from different color cows, but, I mean, if no one ever told you differently…I suppose it could still make sense?

Aside from the fact that you’ve never actually seen a pink cow.

Then again, I live in the middle of the country, where cows appear regularly on the side of the road. So maybe I should give coastal city folk a break?

 

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NAH – this is ridiculous.

It turns out that A LOT of adults believe that chocolate milk comes from brown cows. How many, you ask?

Well, according to the Innovation Center for US Dairy’s website, around 16.4 million people across the country.

They know this because they commissioned a survey to see, which found that 7% of respondents think brown cows equal chocolate milk.

Yep, right out of the udder.

This despite the fact that their official statement (and common sense) says, “Chocolate milk – or any flavored milk for that matter – is white cow’s milk with added flavoring and sweeteners.”

And get this: 48% of respondents – which would mean over 154 million people nationally, if the survey statistics were extrapolated to the country as a whole – admitted they aren’t sure where chocolate milk comes from. As in, maybe it comes from a brown cow? Who knows??

A few more fun facts that emerged from the same survey:

37% of Americans admit to drinking milk straight out of the carton in the fridge (YIKES).

And 29% of Americans buy chocolate milk “for the kids,” but really they just want an excuse to drink it themselves.

As far as the latter, I hope by the time their kids move out they can own what they like and drink it all day like a m-fing adult (who may not know where it comes from). Because chocolate milk, brown cow or no, is delicious.

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The Apollo 11 Astronauts Were Honored with Butter Sculptures at the Ohio State Fair

To celebrate the 50th anniversary of the historic Apollo 11 moon landing, the three astronauts on that mission are being honored with life-sized sculptures made out of butter at the Ohio State Fair.

On July 20, 1969, Neil Armstrong, Buzz Aldrin, and Michael Collins landed on the moon and changed the course of history. The state of Ohio has a strong kinship with space travel: Neil Armstrong was an Ohio native and so was John Glenn, the first American to orbit the Earth. Ohio also has a long history of dairy production. Combine all those factors together and you get the magnificent butter display at this year’s Ohio State Fair.

If you are lucky enough to be able to go to the Ohio State Fair in Columbus, don’t miss the traditional “cow made out of…

Posted by Suellen Brady-Nugent on Thursday, July 25, 2019

Dairy farmers donated over 2,000 pounds of butter to help create the sculptures. An artist from Cincinnati named Paul Brooke and a team of sculptors spent 400-500 hours creating the buttery tributes in a cooler set at 46 degrees to prevent the pieces from melting.

Here’s a cool time-lapse video of the butter being sculpted:

Alexander Balz, one of the artists, said, “The space suits were a real challenge, to be honest. It’s easy to sculpt things that you know. When you sculpt a human being you memorize it, so this was a challenge.”

Roughly 500,000 people are expected to have attended the State Fair in late July and early August. Here’s a video with some great footage of the display.

What a unique and cool way to honor a pivotal event in American, and human, history!

And, by the way, I’m really hoping that this butter sculpting catches on more widely because it is fabulous.

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Fidel Castro had a serious obsession with anything…

Fidel Castro had a serious obsession with anything dairy. He once tried to breed a super cow to no avail, brought the French Ambassador just to debate about cheese and the obsession was big enough for it to be the target for one of the many plots made by the CIA to kill him.