U.S. consumers are increasingly interested in how their food is produced. Understanding consumer preferences and the choices they are making can help dairy producers, and the industry in general, understand consumer demand for production practices.

After years of frustration over declining milk prices and what he felt was lack of promotion and education about whole milk, Richland, Pennsylvania, dairy farmer Nelson Troutman decided it was time he take the initiative to inform consumers himself. 

Meeting changing consumer demands for nutritious snacking and convenience can boost dairy product consumption, according to panelists featured during the Professional Dairy Producers of Wisconsin (PDPW) annual Dairy Food and Policy Summit, held Dec. 19-20, 2018 in Madison, Wisconsin.

Consumers of dairy products are the people who make the dairy industry an industry. Without the consumer buying that chunk of cheese or gallon of milk, eating a pizza, having a dish of ice cream or purchasing bakery products which use nonfat dry milk powder or whey as an ingredient, there would not be a commercial dairy industry.

The “forests” of microbes that naturally grow in babies’ guts are increasingly recognized as key players in childhood health and nutrition.

Stephen Weststeyn, a third-generation dairy farm owner in northern California who milks 4,000 cows; Brenda Hastings, an Ohio farmer with 400 head; and Ryan Bright, a fifth-generation dairy farmer, would all likely say “to hashtag.”

Singer and songwriter Bob Dylan said, “The times they are a-changin’.” One could argue the same idea applies to today’s U.S. dairy industry and the tastes of global consumers that demand dairy products. Domestically, consumer preference for dairy is changing. Cheese and yogurt are replacing fluid milk and ice cream as the products of choice.