Education, collaboration, promotion

DENNISON, Minn. — Dairy consumption in 2025 is doing well and is also outpacing alternatives in every product group.

“In a lot of the categories, we’ve got record highs,” said Scott Gilray, vice president, business unit operations–north with Midwest Dairy.

There is a lot of consumption of dairy. Cheese is at a new record high, butter is at its highest since 1965, and in yogurt, business is rebuilding.

Gilray said fluid dairy milk sales are nine times higher than alternatives, dairy cheese is 174 times higher and dairy yogurt is 61 times higher.

Gilray presented this information and more alongside Shannon Watrin, farmer relations staff member for Midwest Dairy, Feb. 13 in Dennison at one of the Midwest Dairy regional meetings. The pair shared about 2024 checkoff work at the national, regional and local levels.

Locally, Minnesota had 68 Undeniably Dairy grants disburse over $200,000. Undeniably Dairy grants fund up to $5,000 per project for dairy promotion. Some projects include a milk cooler for a weight room, color changing cups for a malt stand and more.

“If there’s something you’re thinking about (doing) ask us,” Watrin said. “We’ll probably find a way to write an application to fund it.”

In 2024, Undeniably Dairy grants did not fund on-farm events because of the H5N1 bird flu. This year, with testing in place, they plan to again fund on-farm events, subject to change.

In 2024 Midwest Dairy was working on science-focused education, including a seminar and webinar at the Minnesota Science Teachers Association conference.

“We’re giving them opportunities to hear … how does dairy work within the sciences, what kind of technology is working within the dairy,” Gilray said. “As they’re talking to their students … (they’ve) got a very positive view of dairy and how we do things.”

Through MSTA, Midwest Dairy shared a science agriculture curriculum that meets state and national standards.

As a parent, Watrin said she is excited about this collaboration.

“We’re (not) feeding them an agenda,” she said. “We’re empowering the teachers to teach the students how to think on their own.”

She said learning about food is interesting to students because of its universal common-ground factor.

“They want to know what they’re eating is good,” she said. “They want to know that the dairy farmers … that are making their food are doing good things for the environment.”

Gilray agreed, and said increasingly people, especially in the younger generation, view food as medicine.

Another science education focused initiative in 2024 was a panel Midwest Dairy was part of with an AI climate change team for a lunch and learn at the University of Minnesota.

On the panel, several dairy farmers shared about the dairy industry and its sustainability efforts. Gilray said the panel was well received by the leader of the AI climate group.

“(He basically said) ‘This was amazing, we learned more in this 1- or 2-hour session than we’ve learned in the last six months,’” Gilray said. “(He said,) ‘We have to have more of these conversations.’”

Midwest Dairy was also involved with a conference for the Upper Midwest Association for Campus Sustainability. There, they shared a fact versus fiction panel session on sustainable farming practices and other topics for over 300 students representing 49 universities.

“We have very open and honest conversations,” Gilray said. “That’s how we get our … information out to these college kids so they start understanding the truths about what … dairy farmers do.”

In research, the Midwest Dairy Foods Research Center helped fund six research projects that benefit consumers and help create strong dairy markets. The projects are from six universities supported by 16 professors.

Midwest Dairy’s investment in increasing dairy sales at the retail level had multiple activations in the Midwest. These activations helped grow incremental milk sales, which represent sales above and beyond the baseline of what would have been sold without the extra promotion.

Gilray said these partnerships only occur with organizations that are like minded.

“We want to work with those organizations that want to partner with farmers,” he said. “We don’t want to come in and bring our dollars and talk about the goodness of dairy and then the very next week, they’re advertising an alternative beverage. … We want somebody that really partners with us.”

Midwest Dairy worked with Kwik Trip to help promote three of their limited time ice cream flavors. The campaign resulted in over 578,000 pounds of incremental milk.

Midwest Dairy helped Pizza Ranch develop and promote loaded cheesy ranch stix as well as helping promote a value meal deal. The campaigns resulted in over 900,000 pounds of incremental milk.

Coborn’s Inc. grocery store did four campaigns with Midwest Dairy. This included videos of Princess Kay of the Milky Way and Kerfeld Hillview Farm going on their website as well as an appearance on TV, a back-to-school cooking class, and more. The promotions resulted in over 620,000 pounds of incremental milk.

Midwest Dairy also collaborated with Freddy’s Frozen Custard & Steakburgers to develop and promote three menu items: a grilled cheese steakburger, a pumpkin pie concrete shake and a caramel apple pie concrete shake. The activations resulted in 5.8 million pounds of incremental milk.

Midwest Dairy also collaborated with thought leaders, working to connect to consumers through them.

“We explain to them about how good dairy is, the benefits of dairy, from the nutritional value, to recipes, to sustainability,” Gilray said. “Then, they go and they talk to their consumers.”

This work with thought leaders included 39 TikTok videos aimed at Generation-Z consumers. The videos resulted in 5.26 million impressions and follow-up surveys showed an 11% increase in trust in the dairy industry’s animal care.

Online, Midwest Dairy utilized banner ads, dairy recipes ads with a “shop recipe” quick link button and more to encourage dairy sales. This initiative worked to capitalize on the fact that 60% of shoppers purchase their groceries online.

On the international scene, Dairy Management Inc. continued to encourage dairy exports, which account for 17% of the U.S. milk production.

“Exports are increasing as global demands of protein are increasing,” Watrin said. “We have a lot of developing countries that are looking to dairy to be an inexpensive, very effective source of protein for their growing nations.”

DMI has eight retail chain partnerships in five countries and culinary partnerships in seven countries. One collaboration has been to get 30% more cheese on pizzas at Pizza Hut in Japan.

Recently, DMI collaborated to help General Mills develop a new, snackable, crispy yogurt-based product called YoBark.

Watrin said General Mills is looking to collaborate beyond product development as well.

“They’re very interested in the farmer story and how they can share that through their products and branding,” she said.