Milk is one of the most highly spoilable products used by consumers today. It’s also one of the most popular.
That’s the biggest challenge facing dairy farmers today: Getting their product to consumers quickly, often within two days of the time it is produced.
Thanks to high-tech tools and advanced technology, milk producers are getting the help they need to keep their products safe, timely and profitable.
Smaller, Regional Producers
There are an estimated 50,000 dairy farms in the US, many of which are in Wisconsin, the nation’s second-leading dairy producer after California. Unlike most other industries, dairy products are still largely made by small, independent producers. In 2012, for example, there were only about 1,800 mega-farms that had more than 1,000 cows.
Because it is a natural product, milk has a high risk of expiration and spoilage. So the process of holding it safely at the proper temperature — below 40 degrees F — begins almost the moment milk leaves the cow.
Maintaining Temperature-Controlled Conditions
Today’s dairy cows are milked by machine, not milkmaids. Suction tubes attached to the cow’s teats suck out the milk, transporting it via tubes to refrigerated tanks. Once filled, these tanks are emptied into tanker trucks, which transport the milk to a dairy processor, where it is tested to make sure it is bacteria-free and the proper temperature.
Any milk that doesn’t make the grade is automatically dumped. In fact, milk is one of the most tested of all food and beverage products.
The dairy processor will homogenize, pasteurize, package and ship the milk to retailers in refrigerated trucks. The gallon of milk you buy at your local grocery store typically is less than 48 hours old.
Getting to Market Quickly
That means that milk is one of the most localized products. Unlike more stable food and beverage products that can be packaged and stored in a warehouse for days, weeks or even months, milk has to be either sold or discarded within a very small window of opportunity.
Meeting that window requires more expensive shipping methods like smaller trucks that travel shorter distances. And it makes it practically impossible to transport milk very far from the farm where it was produced.
The Rising (and Falling) Price of Milk
Have you ever wondered why the price of milk seems so volatile? It’s because dairy cows can’t be turned on and off at will.
Dairy cows produce an essentially constant supply of milk. And there are only a limited number of dairy cows at any given time. Expanding the herd takes time: It takes about 15 months for a calf to mature into a breeding cow.
Once a cow delivers a calf, it will produce milk for about 305 days until it is “dried off” and milking ceases. About 60 days later, a cow can calve again, creating a 365-day (or one year) cycle for high production cows.
The problem is that the demand for dairy products jumps by 10% to 15% in the spring. So dairy farms typically have a shortage of milk during peak months and a glut of product the rest of the year.
Today, some dairy farmers are using high-tech tools to streamline the process. These include RFID tags that allow farmers to constantly monitor the health of each cow in their herd and pilot-less drones to keep an eye on large herds and sprawling farms.