Dean Foods, the largest milk processor in the United States, has declared bankruptcy.
it is blaming a drop in fluid milk demand, the same reason it cited last year when it stopped buying milk from about 100 producers.
Phil Plourd, president of Blimling & Associations, told attendees at the 2019 Farm Journal’s MILK Business Conference this week the actual culprit of muted milk demand overall is cereal.
“Milk’s best friend got in trouble,” said Plourd. “We eat much less cereal today, and if you were to plot a graph of cereal sales and milk sales, it's the same picture.
“Cereal sales are down 20 per cent since 2009 by volume, while milk sales are down by 18 per cent. It’s not much more complicated than that in terms of a big bulk of the loss of sales,” he said.
