The bad news for Vermont dairy farmers: Americans are drinking less milk.
Per capita consumption of milk fell almost 21 percent from 2010 to 2019, to just under half a cup per day, according to the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s Economic Research Service. Younger Americans are drinking it less; kids are eating less cereal with milk.
And yes, plant-based milk alternatives — soy, oat, almond — are taking a sip out of dairy milk sales. But the USDA does not believe they are the primary reason for a decades-long downward trend, which it chalks up to gradually changing habits.
There is good news, though: Much of Vermont’s milk is turned into products that Americans are eating more of, such as cheese, yogurt and butter. By one measure, overall dairy consumption was up 12.4 pounds per person in 2021 over the previous year, to an average of 667 pounds annually, the USDA found.
Vermont produced a whopping 2.5 billion pounds of milk in 2022 — roughly 300 million gallons. So where did all of that go?
It turns out, nobody knows. At least, not exactly. But much of the state’s milk is turned into other products that are sold outside Vermont — and even around the world.
The Vermont Agency of Agriculture, Food and Markets doesn’t track how much of Vermont’s milk becomes various products, but it did provide Seven Days with an impressive list of them, including eggnog, gelato and powdered milk. The roster even includes ghee, Indian-style clarified butter.
Laura Ginsburg, dairy development and innovation lead at the agency, said about two-thirds of the milk produced in Vermont is processed in-state. The rest goes to other regional processors, such as Stonyfield Organic in New Hampshire, which turns a lot of Vermont’s organic milk into yogurt.
However, it’s clear that much Vermont-produced milk becomes products such as cheddar, yogurt and ice cream. Some becomes whey powder — a by-product of cheesemaking that is most often used as an ingredient in other manufactured foods.
Waitsfield-headquartered Agri-Mark, which owns the Cabot Creamery brand and has production facilities in Middlebury and Cabot, is one of the state’s two largest dairy processors. The other is the Dairy Farmers of America cooperative, which merged in 2019 with the St. Albans Cooperative Creamery and took over its St. Albans plant.
Those co-ops report that their Vermont farmer-members produce a combined 235 million gallons of milk annually. That’s about four out of every five gallons of the state’s milk.
Agri-Mark is a regional outfit with farmer-members around the Northeast. In addition to its two Vermont processing facilities, it has plants in West Springfield, Mass., and Chateaugay, N.Y. The co-op’s 125 Vermont farms produced about 100 million gallons of milk in 2022, and most of that was processed into cheddar — some with added flavors — whey powder, yogurt, cottage cheese and sour cream. That’s according to Amber Sheridan, director of corporate communications for Agri-Mark.
Sheridan added that some of the co-op’s milk is sold to other regional processors, which produce bottled milk. She noted that milk tends to come from near the plant where it is bottled, due to the high cost of shipping it. Shoppers can tell which state their milk was bottled in by checking a code stamped on the container. Vermont’s code is 50.
Kiersten Bourgeois, director of marketing and industry relations for Dairy Farmers of America, said the regional co-op has more than 260 member farms in Vermont, which produce just over 135 million gallons of milk annually.
Bourgeois said the co-op’s St. Albans plant produces cream, condensed skim milk and nonfat dry milk powder but that, because the majority is sold to customers for branded and private-label products, she could not provide any additional details.
However, it’s no secret that one of its customers is Ben & Jerry’s, the maker of Vermont’s most famous dairy product. The website of the legendary ice cream company proudly divulges that “It all starts, of course, with the cow … [and] the hundreds of local farms that sell their raw milk to the St. Albans Cooperative Creamery in St. Albans, Vermont. At the Co-op, the milk is separated into heavy cream and condensed skim milk, then shipped by tanker truck to our St. Albans and Waterbury, Vermont factories.”
So, if you make a grilled cheese sandwich with Cabot cheddar or down some Chunky Monkey, you are doing your part to support Vermont’s dairy farmers.
The original print version of this article was headlined “Eat Your Milk | As people consume more dairy products, Vermont’s commodity is churned into many forms”
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This article appears in The Dairy Issue.
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