Milkshed

Changes in Dollar General Dairy Coolers in the Southeast; DG Fresh Distribution Centers Shift Available Brands

/ milksheds / 5 Comments

17_Dollar_General_Changes_East_TN_SE_3c3

Changes are happening in Dollar General dairy cases. In the southeast, this means that there will be visible changes in brands on the cooler shelves.  In some cases, depending on location, this means that familiar ‘local’ brands, which supported farms in the immediate local area, will no longer be available to consumers in at their community Dollar General.

In late 2018, Dollar General announced plans for a new “DG Fresh” Distribution plan, and opened their first regional distribution center for perishable goods in Pottsville, Pennsylvania. During 2019, 4 more regional warehouses were built, with several of those coming on-line in late 2019 and early 2020.

Part of this plan included the expansion of the Dollar General’s in-house Clover Valley brand onto milk cartons sold in the regular DG stores, whereby Dollar General would further utilize its own private label. For a few years, Clover Valley branded milk has been available in the Dollar General Markets (the grocery format DG, but without a huge footprint like the stores you see every 5-6 miles).

Affecting the lower Southeast milkshed most directly are two of those warehouses, one in Atlanta, GA, and another in Montgomery, AL.  In some regions, this means that familiar local brands will no longer appear on the shelves of their local Dollar General stores.

Perhaps the most affected region will be East Tennessee.  Beginning in the second week of June, 2020, local dairy farmers and their families, following their habits, went into Dollar Generals specifically to purchase Mayfield brands (Mayfield in the yellow carton and Fieldcrest in a translucent carton), but were startled to see they were no longer available.  Instead, they saw Clover Valley private labels and PET branded milks.

For several years, local consumers in East TN could rest assured they would be supporting their local dairy farm neighbors by purchasing either Mayfield or Fieldcrest brands at a Dollar General store.  Many dairy farm families and their friends and neighbors shopped at Dollar General because they knew the chain supported their farms.  This grass-roots promotion by the farmers themselves, who knew retail brands were a means of connecting their farms with a consumer sale, sent many customers to Dollar General.  Those farmers will now be sending those consumers to other retailers.

This Dollar General move ultimately means local milk from East Tennessee dairy farms, processed at the Mayfield Dairy plant in Athens, has lost a significant amount of retail shelf space in the immediate area.   Sources, who asked not to be identified, said the milk will still have a Dollar General home, but will be processed and packaged in Athens, then hauled to a warehouse in the Montgomery, AL area, for distribution in the coastal southeast.

Dollar General has now built 5 of a projected 17 regional distribution centers for refrigerated and fresh products.  Those distribution warehouses will serve as hubs in which Dollar General will supply their own stores, instead of relying on Direct Store Delivery (DSD) from various vendors and other regional food distributors.

Atlanta DG Fresh Warehouse will serve East TN:   Up until now, Dollar Generals in East Tn, North Georgia, and SW Virginia had received their milk deliveries directly from Mayfield trucks, arriving 2-3x a week.   Beginning this June 2020, they will receive milk from a DG Fresh warehouse located in the Atlanta area.  That warehouse will receive packaged milk from the Pet Dairy Plant at Spartanburg, SC, which does buy milk from southeast farms, just generally not Tennessee farms.

Change was underway before the Dean Foods bankruptcy:  Both Pet and Mayfield were previously owned by Dean Foods, but as of May 1st, are now owned by Dairy Farmers of America, Inc, the nation’s largest milk cooperative.  The Dollar General plan was initiated in the latter half of 2018, and was well underway before the Dean Foods / Southern Foods Group, LLC Chapter 11 bankruptcy was  filed in November of 2019, and long before the DFA purchase of Mayfield, Pet and other Dean Foods operations.

So, what’s in store for Dollar General dairy cases?  Here’s a sampling of what’s being seen thus far (as of June 19, 2020).  The changeover isn’t quite complete, and it hasn’t been determined how wide a geographic area this will affect. At this time, it’s unknown how Dollar Generals in the middle TN area, which has been served by Purity and its private Dairy Belle label, will be affected.

Point of Pride now gone for East Tn Farmers:  Many dairy farmers in East TN were very happy that Dollar General carried the Mayfield and Fieldcrest brands, and many shopped at Dollar General for that very reason. After all, it was a Tennessee-based company carrying a highly nutritious product that was produced on Tennessee farms. And that milk not only affected dairy farms, it was a means of connection for other farms who grew grains and hay that went to feed those Mayfield cows. That intense in-state connection has now been broken by a Dollar General corporate decision for ‘efficiency’ for Dollar General.  Farmers may understand it, but it doesn’t make it any less painful for them to not be able to make that connection with a product on a shelf.

The ‘short-description’ of the new ‘milk domino game’ type of distribution:

  • Milk, largely from farms in the Carolinas and NW Georgia, will be processed at the PET plant in Spartanburg, SC, then shipped to a DG Warehouse in Atlanta, for distribution to DG stores in GA, East TN, and as far west as Birmingham AL. (there might be slight variations in the distribution territory).
  • Milk from East TN and North Georgia farms will be processed at Athens, TN, packaged in cartons wearing the Mayfield and Clover Valley brands, then shipped to Montgomery, AL for distribution in the Coastal South.
  • It’s not yet known how this switch will affect FL, VA, and KY and areas farther west.
  • Observation: As Covid-19 panic buying ensued in March and April, Dollar General stores in the southeast experienced milk shortages like grocery stores.  However, some of the shortages in DG were also likely due to DG personnel getting adjusted to this new distribution schematic.  Even this week, there have been some very empty Dollar General coolers, particularly a couple of days after a delivery.

But above all, Dairy Farmers in the South do appreciate everyone who buys any of these southeast brands, and we appreciate Dollar General for buying milk from southeast farms!

Photos tell the story:

The Changes in Chugs in East TN (the ‘drop in and get it to go cause it’s local’ size):

17_Dollar_General_Changes_Chugs_June_20

GALLONS:  Some Comparisons of the new and previous in East TN:

17_Dollar_General_Gallons_Fieldcrest_Clover_Valley

PLANT CODES:  How we know where the milk was processed (most farms in the southeast know where the farms are) along with a note about the “Best By” date:

17_Dollar_General_Codes_Dates_TN

 

History of DG Fresh Implementation, and Background:

Dollar General has over 16,000 stores, and approximately 5,000 are now receiving goods from their DG Fresh Perishable Goods warehouses.  The company hopes to be nationwide with this effort within 3-4 years.  Here’s a progression:

Mar 15, 2019: Dollar General Shifting to Self-Distribution of Fresh and Frozen; by Russell Redman for Supermarket News

  • The effort began in very early 2019 with 300 stores in the Northeast, distribution facility located in Pottsville, PA
  • CEO Todd Vasos said “DG Fresh will allow us to control our own destiny in fresh foods.”
  • Vasos: “In addition, self-distribution will allow us to offer a wider selection of our own private brands to provide our customers with even more compelling value. Overall, we expect DG Fresh to allow us to do a better job of tailoring our product selection to fit the needs of our customers, particularly in rural areas.”

March 19, 2019:  Dollar General Brings Perishables Distribution In-House, Will Open 975 New Stores in in 2019, by Glenn Taylor, for Retail Touch Points

Aug 29, 2019: Dollar General Encouraged by DG Fresh Rollout,by Ron Ruggles for Supermarket News

Aug 29, 2019: Dollar General Expanding DG Fresh to Fourth Distribution Center, posted at Produce Blue Book

  • From one warehouse in PA in Jan of 2019, then one in NC and GA during the spring and summer of 2019,  adding another in Indiana last fall

Dec 6, 2019: Dollar General to open 5th Warehouse in Fresh Distribution Overhaul  by Emma Cosgrove, Supply Chain Dive

17_Dollar_General_Changes_East_TN_SE_3c3

Michigan Spartan LLC: Major ‘Processing Campus’ to be built in Michigan

/ milksheds / Leave a comment

A News Digest about Michigan’s $510 Million Processing Complex: DFA, Glanbia, Select Milk, and Proliant are Partners

9_Milksheds_Michigan_Spartan_Header_F

On Thursday, August 9, 2018, Michigan announced a monumental project which will fill part of the void in worldwide dairy processing capacity.
Michigan Spartan LLC is the business entity developing a ‘world class dairy processing facility’  expected to process over 8 million pounds of milk a day when fully operating, said to be by September of 2020.  American Cheese is projected to be a primary product, with whey permeates, a by-product of cheese production used for food and feed applications, also a product offering.
The new facility is a partnership between Dairy Farmers of America (DFA),  Glanbia, Select Milk Producers, and Proliant Dairy Ingredients.  The venture is said to be similar to Southwest Cheese, a previously existing partnership of DFA, Glanbia, and Select Milk.
Michigan Milk Producers will also be a milk source for the facility.
The evolution of the project included a number of local and regional economic development and government agencies, with the Michigan Economic Development Corporation’s Michigan Strategic Fund board an integral player.  The Michigan Department of Agriculture was also involved.
The sheer magnitude of all the agencies and efforts involved in this monumental project offers many lessons to others considering dairy development efforts in any location.
The project is multi-national in scope, and involves worldwide dairy industry heavyweights.   Dairy Farmers of America is North America’s 2nd largest cooperative and 8th largest dairy company.  Select Milk Producers is North America’s 8th largest dairy cooperative according to Progressive Dairy, (6th largest on USDA’s Top 100 Ag Co-ops – last available, 2016 numbers) and 14th largest co-op on that composite  ranking.  Glanbia Nutritionals is North America’s 22nd largest dairy company, and a subsidiary of Glanbia PLC, based in Kilkenny Ireland. Proliant is based in Ankeny, Iowa.

Following is a digest compiled from media reports of today’s (August 9, 2018) from Michigan and other areas:

From the Detroit News:  “We really try to grow the value of the agriculture industry so that most of the commodities stay here in the state, have them processed here, keep the farmers here,” is a statement from  MEDC CEO Jeff Mason. The project is slated to receive $26.5 Million in Tax Abatements over 15 years. 

From the Lansing State Journal (makes one marvel at the effort put into project):  the project involved a number of state and local government agencies, included tax concessions on several levels, with these project parameters:
  • 146 acres in the site
  • Will process about 8 Million pounds of milk a day (mostly American style)
  • Will produce about 300 million pounds of cheese per year
  • Will operate  24/7, 365 days per year
  • Notes similarities to Southwest Cheese in New Mexico [another Glanbia / DFA / Select Milk joint venture]
  • Will use by-products from each layer of processing (whey from cheesemaking, then permeate from whey concentrated for dairy solids)
  • 259 jobs at the cheese plant
  • 38 jobs at the adjacent whey permeate plant

From Crain’s Detroit Business;  a business publication in the area:

  • Another $40 Million in Tax Incentives likely to come in the future may drive total investment from $510 to $550 Million
  • The project is part of Michigan’s Agriculture Processing Renaissance Zone initative, a program which assisted with another $58 million dairy processing facility (Foremost Cooperative) and a soybean processing facility earlier this year
  • “Adding this capacity to our ecosystem . . . is really going to bring stability to the market” – Peter Anastor, Division Director, Michigan Department of Agriculture

From The Charlotte Observer (an AP story)

  • Glanbia will oversee commercial, tecnical, and business operations
  • The project considered other sites in other locations

 

A worldwide milkshed suffering from a lack of modernized processing capacity should benefit from this project.

Note: Additional links and updates may be added in the future to this blog post.

9_Milksheds_Michigan_Spartan_Header_F

Dean Foods to close 7 plants in 2018; No additional producer letters expected soon

/ milksheds / 2 Comments

0000_7_Plants_Announcement_Dean_Foods

(NOTE:  This is an evolving story affecting Dean Plants across the country.  Sources are a variety of public information and anonymous sources.  Updates will be made as warranted).

Dean Foods will be closing 7 processing plants in seven states in the next months, with the plants located in Kentucky, Georgia, Pennsylvania, Massachusetts, Illinois, Michigan and Minnesota.

News of the plant closings began to emerge through local news outlets in some of the cities involved through the day Tuesday, May 22nd, yet, at this posting, there are yet no official statements from Dean Foods corporate officials.

This announcement follows the jolting announcement in early March that over 100 farmers in 8 states, marketing milk as Dean Dairy Direct (independent producers, meaning not members of a co-op or marketing agency) producers, would have their contracts terminated as of May 31, 2018.  At this point, many of those farmers have found new markets, several elected to disperse their herds, with several still struggling to find a market and income source for their farm’s milk.

The navigation of stormy, wind-tossed oceans of milk in the overflowing worldwide dairy milkshed has led to the announcement that these processing plants will be shutting their doors during the late summer and fall.   Intense competition to find a processing market/plant for milk, exacerbated by declining milk consumption the world over, has converged in a perfect storm of farmers getting caught in the crosshairs with no markets for their milk, along with employees in processing plants losing their jobs as well.

Competition for the prime retail real estate of grocery store shelf space is also a factor in these events.

In the southeast, the two Dean Foods plant closures at Braselton, GA and Louisville, KY follow the early May announcement of the closure of a Fulton, Ky plant, owned by Prairie Farms.  In that event, processing operations will cease, but the facility will remain a distribution center, with 12 of 52 employees remaining.

An anonymous Dean Foods source says that “no more farmer/producer contract terminations via letters from Dean Foods are expected in the near future.”  However, we all know that increasing consumption of fluid milk is the quickest way to stabilize the future of all dairy farms across America.

The Dean plants said to be closed are:

  1. (News report: not initially confirmed by Deans)
  2. (News report: Member of founding family not bitter) 
  3. News report:  (Processes gallons & half-gallons, 120 employees)
  • Braselton, GA [Mayfield brand]   (2015 Dean’s CEO Quality Award Recipient)    (Visitors Center closed in 2014, reopened, Over 1 million folks a year to learn) (Reports from anonymous employees who received notices)
  • Louisville, KY    [Dean’s brand] News report link to WKYT) “That loss will cut production at the company’s Louisville plant, which will shut down.”

This announcement is only one in a series of cost-cutting measures Dean Foods has taken over the past several years.  A PET milk plant in Richmond, VA was closed in the fall of 2017.   In a Food Business News report of March 1, 2018, phrases such as “increasing competition,’ ‘6% decline in volume,’ and ‘reset cost structure,’  were signals more changes are to come.

The Louisville plant closure comes as no surprise, due to its distribution overlap into Indiana of retail centers to be served from the new Walmart milk processing plant opening in Fort Wayne, IN.  However, the opening of that Walmart plant has now been pushed to late summer, for a variety of reasons.  A recent report by Sherry Bunting, which appeared in the Farmers Exchange, features an interview with a Walmart spokesperson on that project’s status.

The closure of the Braselton, GA, Mayfield plant, may have come as a bit of surprise to some folks.  In 2016, this display in the Visitor’s Center relayed some stats which were current at that time, however, today’s employee count is closer to 150.  It is not known if this includes distribution networks.

2515_Braselton_Stats_Image_Blog_F

Dean Foods, as of an annual Dairy Foods (magazine) report, last published in the August 2017 edition, is the United States second largest milk processor, with Nestle being #1.

0000_2018_Dean_Foods_Ranking_F

As is common with any company treading in difficult waters, reports of a sale of the company, or of a merger and acquisition, are commonplace.  Sometimes they prove to be nothing, sometimes they prove to be true, and only time will tell which is the case with Dean’s.  It truly will be in the best interest of the United States dairy industry for the company to stabilize, due to the number of farms for which it provides a market, and for the number of employees in plants across the country.

The hardest truth of all of this is that ultimately, farmers in local regions, the rural economies that depend on a viable market for those farmers, and employees at plants, are the ones suffering the most from battles at all levels of the worldwide milkshed. 

Updates, and corrections if needed, will occur as more news becomes available.

 

0000_7_Plants_Announcement_Dean_Foods

 

A Milkshed of a TN Dogwood Winter

/ milksheds / Leave a comment

We’re back!

After a hiatus that was longer than it was meant to be; Milksheds Blog is back up and running. This post isn’t going to be real complicated –  just a quick reminder of what a milkshed is – courtesy of a cup of hot chocolate!

Today, in East Tennessee, despite sunny skies, we woke up to a rather chilly morning in our ‘Dogwood Winter’  – freeze and frost warnings were a forecaster’s Sunday morning hymn!

00_Dogwood_Winter_Milksheds_3134_F

And after church, there was still a chilly undertone, and a cup of hot chocolate was the perfect answer to warming my bones.

My general definition of a milkshed is “all of the elements that come together to bring any glass of milk or other dairy product from the cow to the consumer.”    The picture below is a ‘snapshot’ of almost everything in the economic chain that came together in that one very delicious cup of hot chocolate.

00_Milkshed_DairyPure_AgriVoice_F

In this area, Dean Foods has a big footprint, and the ag community is so glad to have them in East Tennessee and North Georgia, bottling under the national Dean brands of DairyPure and TruMoo, the beloved regional brand name of Mayfield, and several private labels for regional grocery chains and big box retailers.   The direct jobs at the processing plants in the Athens, TN and Braselton, GA communities are important to economic developers in each of those townships.

And the pride that is found regionally in that Mayfield brand and those plants can’t be measured!

But not often considered is the much wider impact those milk plants have as they drive the farming industry in this geographic corridor.  There are hundreds of dairy farms and thousands of cows that have a purpose and are sustained because of those milk plants.  And extended from that, hundred of row crop and hay farmers grow grains and hay that get milled into feed for those dairy herds. Even farmers outside the area benefit, because commodities find their way to feed mills in the area to get blended into TMRs for  those cows.  At some point, maybe some numbers can be put to that, sequence of farm economic events, but that will wait for another day.

I would be remiss if I didn’t mention there are several other milk plants within a 150 mile radius that utilize ‘local’ milk, but we’ll discuss them on a future day.  Today, DairyPure was in my fridge, and thus in my hot chocolate.

As for the hot chocolate mix – I bought it because of the ‘milk bottle’ container originally, but wow, is it great!  It is made by Burnham & Mills in Vermont – if you’d like to order, try clicking on their name.

Milk is white, and looks simple.  But a milkshed can be far more complicated.  We’ll explore more – after I finish that cup of hot chocolate mix!  These chilly days won’t last long!  Until next time – drink a few gallons of milk in your milkshed!

France to the French Broad – A Uniform’s Milkshed

/ milksheds / Leave a comment

Image

A soldier’s World War I uniform is a visible reminder of many elements of today’s milkshed. This uniform teaches us how actions taken, although seemingly small and minute at the time, can have a long-term and life-lasting influence many years later.

In this case, the gentleman who wore this uniform nearly 100 years ago had an impact on your modern global foodshed, in several different  ways.  His name was John Graham, and he was my great-uncle.

Uncle John left his family’s Jefferson County, Tennessee farm to enlist in the Army in The Great War.  As common with so many young men of his day, his calling was not forced due to a draft; it was simply a point of honor,  and a belief that America had the duty being the world’s leader in defending democracy, and it was his responsibility to help that mission.

He served in the European Theatre, and returned  back to East Tennessee at war’s end. We know he was a corporal, but ‘remembrances’ have him at a higher rank.   Hopefully, some of the paperwork and verification will show up in a long-lost box in the top of a closet sometime in the future.

Uncle_John_Veteran_WWI_F

A bit longer than a decade after he returned home, Uncle John’s family found themselves experiencing the government mandate of ’eminent domain,’ when TVA began bringing dams to the Southeast and East Tennessee, both for flood control and in the name of jobs as the country struggled out of the Big Depression. The family was forced to move from Jefferson County by the Douglas Dam project, to a new home farm on the Little Tennessee River, in Loudon County, not far from the juncture with the (Big) Tennessee River.  That move occurred early in 1936.

As the family re-established itself with a diverse family farm (dairy cows, registered Holsteins, sheep, hogs, tobacco), my Uncle John was also building a real-estate career and working on the farm part-time.  His focus was on farm sales.

I was delighted –  and astonished – to find out recently that some friends of mine who operate a Polk County, TN river-bottom farm came to those life-generating, fertile soils courtesy of my Uncle John bringing them to that site. Their large dairy herd produces over 4200 gallons of milk a day – that’s a year’s worth of milk for 40 average families in a day’s time!

In the mid-60’s, Uncle John found himself, once again, in the middle of a Graham family relocation due to a TVA dam.  This time, the Tellico Dam project, again using eminent domain, came knocking and was telling my immediate family, with my dad at the helm, that we had to find a new farm.  Uncle John, with his real estate contacts, was instrumental in locating farms across the Southeast for my dad to look at (if you’re running a dairy, you don’t have much time to look yourself).   When he thought he found something that might work, our weekends were spent loading up and driving to check out what might be our ‘new home.’

This ‘looking’ went on for about 3 and 1/2 years before we finally moved to a new farm home.  The  process involved options on a river-bottom farm in Sequatchie County, TN, a row-crop farm near Guthrie, KY, neither of which materialized) and many, many dairy farms across Middle and East Tennessee.  Finally an unexpected death of a farm owner who remembered my Uncle John and Dad, and a widow’s desire to not have anything to do with milking cows, led to a somewhat sudden purchase of a farm that had been the very first one my family looked at.
 
Uncle John made the trip with my dad to sign the first documents of purchase, and may have even co-signed the loan (again, a missing file lost in a box would verify that, or not). 
 
This river-bottom farm near Newport, Tennessee lays in the foothills of the Great Smoky Mountains, 20 miles from the NC border.  Through many hundreds of years, it has been home to Indians who grew maize (the predecessor of today’s corn, settlers, the Robinson family, the Myers family, and was owned by Mr. Sluder before the Grahams purchased it.  The last time cows were milked here was the late 1970’s, after I went to college, but it has played a huge role in the Southeast milkshed because grains grown here have gone into feed for dairy cows.
 
The river bottoms are bordered by the French Broad River, which some geologists recognize as the third oldest river in America, and one of the oldest in the world.  I can’t help but be amazed by the changes in the world that, “If this river could talk,” we would learn about.
 
My generation of Grahams is only a speck in time of the stewards that have witnessed changes in agriculture and in the world.  I hope we are up to the challenges that face us in a future of agriculture as we struggle to feed the world, and balance that struggle with the function of a family.
 
If only Uncle John, with his wisdom and perspective that were enhanced by a uniform of honor, were around today to give us some advice on farming, foothills, river bottoms and a family farm!  All of these elements affect the future of your worldwide milkshed.  Indeed, all of these elements affect the future of your worldwide foodshed!