Page 32 - John Umhoefer News Today : Breaking News, Live Updates & Top Stories | Vimarsana

Processors consider markets, not regions While the pandemic and its effects are by no means behind the United States, recent vaccine availability and slipping COVID-19 infection rates have caused many parts of the country to walk back policies meant to reduce human interaction and limit the spread of the disease. This doesn’t apply to all parts of the U.S., but many rural areas are opening restaurants and other food institutions again. That raised a poignant question from an April 21 Hoard’s Dairyman DairyLivestream listener. They asked, “Has dairy demand looked different across the U....

Dairy plant workers wanted The dairy supply chain was able to keep operating as best it could last spring thanks in no small part to the employees working at dairy processing plants. Consider this: There weren’t the large COVID-19 outbreaks or worker walkouts that occurred at some meat processing plants, causing tremendous backlogs of product. Things undoubtedly could have gone much differently. Instead, people truly rallied around the concept of being an essential worker, embracing the need to show up and literally feed their fellow citizens. They took changes to their workday in stride be...

Moving cheese at the drop of a hat One thing we learned especially in the early days of the COVID-19 pandemic and continue to learn now is this: expect the unexpected. That’s been true for consumers trying to buy product at the store, but also for the manufacturers and processors making those products, including dairy processing plants. Dairy demand has taken unexpected twists and turns as places like restaurants and schools close and then find alternative ways to deliver product. Milk supply has rose and fallen in unexpected patterns as some co-ops and milk buyers implement production limi...

Risk management helps avoid bad outcomes The term risk management has become an integral part of the dairy lexicon in the last decade, and its merits have never been more obvious than during the wild swings caused by the COVID-19 pandemic. During the April 21 Hoard’s Dairyman DairyLivestream, the University of Wisconsin’s Mark Stephenson described risk management not as a way to make money but rather as an opportunity to avoid having a really bad outcome. “What I want to always tell a group or audience is that risk management is going to cost you something,” he told the online audien...

WCMA Wisconsin Cheese Makers Association (WCMA) is applauding U.S. Tammy Baldwin (D-Wisconsin) as she reintroduced the DAIRY PRIDE Act, requiring products made from nuts, seeds, plants, and algae to no longer be mislabeled with dairy terms such as milk, cheese or yogurt.  Current Food and Drug Administration (FDA) standards define dairy products as being made from the milk of dairy animals, but the agency has not enforced its own regulation, enabling a rapid rise in the mislabeling of plant-based imitation dairy products. “Americans deserve clear, truthful labels as they choose the foods ...