Global Milk Price - is it affecting you?

[MossRoad]

They must have an awesome methane gas generation facility. Do they discuss or tour that "end" of the business?

They run the manure though a digester. It produces methane that they run their trucks from, and also generate their electricity from, and also sell some electricity back to the grid.

 

[MossRoad]

Here's a picture I took while there last April. There's about 4000 cows in this dairy. There are two barns a quarter mile long by 100' wide. The cows come to this carousel three times per day in shifts. They walk on and back off by themselves. If you look at the cows in the background those are waiting to get milked. Finished cows leave to the right of that crowd. They have 10 more dairies in the immediate area so over 44,000 cows. 70-80 semi tankers of 6-7 thousand gallons each of milk every day leave these facilities. 70-80 cows born here every day.


This is a link to a google satellite image from this very barn I took the picture in. The turntable is in the gray section of the building to the right.
https://www.google.com/maps/@41.0267849,-87.2812184,598m/data=!3m1!1e3
Zoom out and go north. You'll find about 9 or 10 more barns just like this in the area.
Amazing size of an operation. Its owned by several families.
You can't appreciate the size of the operation unless you visit it.

 

[SPIKER]

Here locally we are paying usually in the 2.50 to 2.99 for milk but most cases it has been lower. Ohio is pretty big producer of milk cheese etc. Used to buy it straight out of the pasteurizer/chiller while it was heading into the main tank. Uncle was a dairy farmer & I worked one (not his) for a summer (haying and feeding.cleaning.) Part of the pay was as much milk as ya wanted to drink... At time it was dumped remember uncle talking about dumping milk, truck broke down or heavy snow prevented pickup and even price...

As it stands now kids & adults don't know what REAL WHOLE milk tastes like, having heavy cream float to the top and skimming it off making ice-cream or pancakes/biscuits with it is nothing better. Drank it from time I could walk till I went into military, now farmer can be sent to jail for selling it out of his place... PA has a Amish farmer in jail for selling raw milk so far as I can tell it is something most will never know, I drink 2% now from the store but not cause I like it but because it is available...

M

 

[smstonypoint]

As it stands now kids & adults don't know what REAL WHOLE milk tastes like, having heavy cream float to the top and skimming it off making ice-cream or pancakes/biscuits with it is nothing better. Drank it from time I could walk till I went into military, now farmer can be sent to jail for selling it out of his place... PA has a Amish farmer in jail for selling raw milk so far as I can tell it is something most will never know, I drink 2% now from the store but not cause I like it but because it is available...

M

SC allows raw milk sales. I grew up on a dairy farm and drank raw milk until I was 18. I now pass on raw milk -- I'm happy with pasteurization and homogenization.

Steve

 

[dave1949]

They run the manure though a digester. It produces methane that they run their trucks from, and also generate their electricity from, and also sell some electricity back to the grid.

Thanks David. Neat. That kind of synergy doesn't work as well for a small operation. They are probably selling post-digester garden & field manure/compost by the truckload too.

 

[OldMcDonald]

Is Fair Oaks the farm which is now producing the Coca-Cola milk? I read something about it recently and was surprised that Coca-Cola is getting involved in the milk trade - it will be interesting to see how they price it against their other products. In the UK it is crazy that bottled water now often costs more than milk..!

I only buy bottled water on the rare occasion I am thirsty between here and Lisbon Airport, but it does cost an enormous amount more than milk in the supermarket. The milk in these service stations will cost a lot more too I suppose. I think you will be like me and can probably find wine for less than some bottled water. I do like Spanish wine - never had one I did not like. Occasionally when my son visits we make the trip to Plascencia and just fill up the estate car with whatever takes our fancy. 59c a litre bottle for some very tasty reds a few years ago was probably our best trip. We did not count in the Supermarket and had a total of 119 bottles of mixed table wines. We would have bought one more if we had counted.

 

[smstonypoint]

I only buy bottled water on the rare occasion I am thirsty between here and Lisbon Airport, but it does cost an enormous amount more than milk in the supermarket. The milk in these service stations will cost a lot more too I suppose. I think you will be like me and can probably find wine for less than some bottled water. I do like Spanish wine - never had one I did not like. Occasionally when my son visits we make the trip to Plascencia and just fill up the estate car with whatever takes our fancy. 59c a litre bottle for some very tasty reds a few years ago was probably our best trip. We did not count in the Supermarket and had a total of 119 bottles of mixed table wines. We would have bought one more if we had counted.

Mark Perry, one of my favorite bloggers, has any interesting comparison today of relative prices of liquids at It's something of a miracle that gas is only $2 per gallon and cheaper than any other liquid consumers buy » AEI.

I have been frustrated before in trying to get columns lined up in TBN posts, so I won't even try this time. I'm too lazy to make the exchange rate and measurement unit changes for our international members.

Product Cost Per Gallon
HP Printer Ink $4,500
Nyquil $107.52
Premium Vodka $76.80
Honey $46.72
Hair Gel $44.80
Pancake Syrup $32.26
Red Bull $28.00
Windex $23.81
Real Lemon Juice $22.91
Soy Sauce $22.66
Chicken Noodle Soup $21.25
Mouthwash $19.65
Tide Laundry Detergent $18.18
Dawn Dish Detergent $17.92
Craft Beer $17.78
Mustard $17.41
Mayonnaise $17.02
409 Cleaner $16.64
Ranch Dressing $16.00
Half and Half Cream $15.87
Shampoo $15.36
Spaghetti Sauce $14.59
Ketchup $13.95
Vegetable Oil $13.44
Orange Juice $11.69
V-8 $10.37
Tomato Juice $9.47
Juicy Juice $8.83
Cranberry Juice $7.94
Soy Milk $6.66
Gatorade $6.53
Apple Juice $6.00
Iced Tea $5.89
Ammonia $4.10
Milk $4.00
Pepsi $3.71
Vinegar $3.07
Sparkling Water $2.94
Gasoline $2.05

Milk and gasoline are real bargains.

Steve

 

[MossRoad]

Thanks David. Neat. That kind of synergy doesn't work as well for a small operation. They are probably selling post-digester garden & field manure/compost by the truckload too.

We took a bus tour through their facility. The bus drives down the center of the long barns. The cows stand there and look at you. No one's allowed out of the bus due to security of not passing diseases along. You are allowed into a clean viewing area where that picture of the turntable I took was taken. Anyhow, on each side of the center isle of the barns is a slightly raised area where the cows stand and lay around all day. It is filled with sand. A tractor comes through and puts out feed for the cows. They eat and poop, etc... in the sand. Every so often (I forget the interval) a tractor comes through with a giant vacuum and they suck up all the sand and replace it with fresh sand. They take the dirty sand to a custom made device that cleans the sand and presses all of the moisture, debris, etc... out of the sand and they re-use it.

Take a look at this satellite image....
https://www.google.com/maps/@41.0297557,-87.2828192,317m/data=!3m1!1e3

Zoom in on it.... The top gray rectangle is a mountain of silage fermenting under tarps covered with tires.... that's a lot of tires! Under that is one that is in use... zoom in and look at the front end loader for scale. To the right of that is a lot full of the sand with another front end loader. And to the right of that, you'll see a white barn with four round tanks to the right of it. I believe those are the methane digesters. Below that, you see a sludge pond.

And this exact same setup is duplicated at least 10 more times, except there aren't digesters at each one. As I recall, some of the facilities are piped together.

Anyhow, its not a far drive from Chicago or Indianapolis, so if anyone ever gets the chance to go, you won't be disappointed.

And they're getting into hogs, now. They raise them, birth them, then sell them off to finishers. That tour is pretty cool, too.

 

[MossRoad]

Oh, and if anyone hasn't heard or read.... they are partnering with Coke to make a lactose free milk brand called FairLife.

Fairlife | #BelieveInBetter

Inside The Indiana Megadairy Making Coca-Cola's New Milk : The Salt : NPR

http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2014/dec/31/fair-oaks-farms-coca-cola-develop-premium-milk/

 

[Localmotion]

SC allows raw milk sales. I grew up on a dairy farm and drank raw milk until I was 18. I now pass on raw milk -- I'm happy with pasteurization and homogenization.

Steve

I miss raw milk - I always took milk home straight from the cow (or at least bulk tank) when I was farming and genuinely believe that the bacteria present in raw milk is healthy and helps to build the immune system. I was rarely unwell and hardly ever suffered a cold despite being outside in all weathers. Now we live in a warm, dry climate and all we can get locally here is UHT - it's just not the same and I seem to have a cold more months than not...