Indiana dairy farmer Mike Yoder’s offhand comment to a Reuters reporter sparked newspaper articles, an interview on Fox TV and a Saturday Night Live mention. How did the first story, the Reuters article titled ‘Sweet times for cows as gummy worms replace costly corn feed,’ come about? That was accidental. It started in the middle of the summer when Reuters called me about a drought-related story. I just made an offhand comment that we were feeding ice cream sprinkles to help reduce feed cost – I shared with him [the reporter] that it’s not an unusual practice in the cattle industry to feed bakery products.

Donald "Donnie" Sherman, a well-known California dairyman and a co-founder of Hilmar Cheese Company, passed away on Oct. 19. The fourth generation to dairy in central California’s San Joaquin Valley, Sherman – who was born in 1946 – grew up in a family blessed by out-of-the-box thinking. His great-grandfather, H. F. Sherman, operated Pioneer Dairy and Cheese Plant, the first dairy in Stanislaus County, from 1888 to 1898.