1) Although Dean Foods markets itself as a ‘regional’ brand in order to make their milk appear more local in its origin, they are really just offering the same product in different packaging, and the milk could come from any of Dean’s suppliers across the country. Dean is also the largest producer of organic milk in the U.S. through its ‘Horizon’ brand, which has been equally implicated in price fixing lawsuits. It’s an important reminder that ‘organic’, ‘local’, and ‘sustainable’ all mean different things, and that DC consumers may not always be purchasing exactly what they think they are.
2) Even when the milk is sourced locally/regionally, price-fixing between processors and producers provides an incentive for farmers to cut costs. This means farming more intensively, cutting corners on sustainability or quality, and/or upscaling operations to increasingly mechanized and industrialized practices. So even if DC consumers are benefiting from these price savings (which is highly debatable), the environment and the nutrition value of their milk suffers greatly.
3) A farmer’s lone alternative to selling their milk to a big processor is to focus on boutique, direct-to-consumer marketing through local farmers markets and CSAs. For example, milk from South Mountain Creamery in Maryland — a local, family farm that doesn’t use growth hormones and minimizes antibiotic use — gives their cows free choice of feeding, and does a great deal for environmental sustainability by packaging in reusable glass bottles, not using pesticides on their fields (preventing downstream runoff), and several other initiatives on methane and bio-diesel energy projects. Their milk costs $7.50 a gallon, plus delivery fee. Although this seems like an excessive price, it reflects the real cost of producing milk in a sustainable manner. This establishes two parallel markets for milk in the District: the vast majority, which is affordable, less nutritious, and environmentally less sustainable, or nutritious and environmentally friendly, which is available only to an elite cadre of buyers.
In an effort to stop price-fixing in the milk industry, Northeast dairy farmers recently brought a class action law suit against Dean Foods, accusing the company of unfairly using their market muscle to depress wholesale liquid milk prices. Over time, this case will be fought out in US district court, and will invariably affect the price, availability, and quality of milk nationwide, but with greater impact on urban areas like Washington.
Breaking the price stranglehold of middlemen like Dean Foods will help give farmers the flexibility to adopt a range of business models that can more gradually and affordably move towards higher quality, more environmentally sustainable milk for all consumers. Over the next several months, the DC Food For All will continue tracking this lawsuit as it progresses, and explore what alternative visions for a regional milk system might look like.
how does price fixing add inventives to farmers to cut costs? if there is price fixing, they are prly fixing the price higher than what it should be for the consumer. this would ease incentives to farmers to cut costs, if anything, but honeslty, it prly wouldnt even affect them at all? am i missing something?
Also, that small South Mountain company is championed here bc its “not using pesticides on their fields (preventing downstream runoff)” and instead trying “several other initiatives on methane and bio-diesel energy projects”—- But methane is natural gas-and pesticides are just processed natural gas liquids. So I don’t see this point either?
finally, i dont mean to tear apart your points, but i also dont undersatnd one more argument u make in point number 1 above: “Although Dean Foods markets itself as a ‘regional’ brand in order to make their milk appear more local in its origin, they are really just offering the same product in different packaging, and the milk could come from any of Dean’s suppliers across the country. “ why would Deans, who is im sure obsessed with finding the cheapest farm to market option, choose to pay the transport fees to move milk across the country to DC unless that was going to the be best milk for consumers?
I’d leave my email for you to respond, but it’d probably best for all your readers that you explain these points here, so that they can understand what you are saying, too.
thanks