DFA's Milk Showing Up In Some Sweet Places

Kansas City, MO - DFA looks for ways to increase sales of your milk, which sometimes means developing less obvious milk products than butter and cheese. That's why DFA produces and markets a dairy blend. This blend is similar to sweetened condensed milk, but only is available to food manufacturers – not the public. These manufacturers use this formulated milk product to create mouth-watering delights such as caramel, candy, cookies, sundae toppings, key lime pies and fudge.

To create this specialty blend, "DFA plants have developed highly specialized manufacturing processes whereby a mixture of milk, skim milk, cream and sugar are initially blended, pasteurized and then concentrated to our customers' specifications using an evaporator," explains David Moss, DFA's project manager for condensed and related milk products. It is not intended for retail sales direct to consumers, but instead is earmarked for food service consumption. Because the product is formulated, it can be customized to the specific needs of each customer, whether it is Golden State Foods, the largest contract manufacturer for McDonald's, or ConAgra Foods, Inc., one of North America's leading packaged food companies.

"We at DFA are unique in this segment of the dairy industry because we are the only manufacturer and supplier of sweetened condensed milk products with two plants in the United States," Moss says, referring to DFA plants in Sulphur Springs, Texas, and Reading, Pa. "Our milk is procured exclusively from our very own DFA membership," he adds, "and our cream is produced at our own plants." In Sulphur Springs, the specialty blend is manufactured from DFA milk out of the Greater Southwest Milk Marketing Agency and then distributed to an area stretching from Seattle east to New York and from Wisconsin south to Florida. In Reading, the product incorporates milk from the DFA farms in the mid-Atlantic region and is distributed throughout the northeast.

Moss, who works for DFA's Formulated Foods Group, focuses on the sales of value-added products in an effort to bring greater returns to the milk that the farmers of DFA are producing. Marketing DFA's sweetened specialty blend has certainly done this, providing a catalyst for growth in milk sales beyond traditional fluid consumption. Here are a few of the sweet treats whose ingredients include DFA's formulated milk products:

• HERSHEY'S Jar Toppings, such as hot fudge and caramel.
• Kellogg's branded items such as Kellogg's Rice Krispies Treats.
• Sundaes served up at Dairy Queen and SONIC, America's Drive-In, locations.
• Girl Scout cookies, specifically the Samoa variety, a caramel and toasted coconut cookie.
• McDonald's hot fudge sundaes.
• Key lime pie filling, which can be found in key lime pies sold at Wal-Mart and Sam's Clubs.

SOURCE: Dairy Farmers of America, Inc.