Dairy West donated nearly 1 million pounds of cheese, butter and yogurt to communities during its April 27-July 31 Curds + Kindness campaign.
Chobani helped to extend the program by supplying yogurt to school-based feeding programs.
“A key was how our community worked together to step up to meet this need so quickly,” Senior Vice President of Marketing Kristi Spence said. “There was very little hesitation in coming together and coming up with a solution.”
Some dairy producers early in the coronavirus pandemic were forced to dump milk originally destined for the foodservice sector, which COVID-19 shutdowns disrupted.
Dairy West, a marketing organization that represents dairy farm families in Idaho and Utah, and industry participants formed Curds + Kindness to help get that part of the milk supply to people in need.
Dumping became much less common after about a month as parts of the supply chain began to stabilize. Curds + Kindness, which involved about a dozen dairy producers and cooperatives as well as 16 other businesses, continued.
Spence said the program in June, National Dairy Month, delivered more than 20,000 bags of cheese curds and 10,000 grilled-cheese sandwiches to front-line workers in sectors such as health care, public safety and food banks.
Chobani extended the program into school-based summer feeding programs. Spence said the company supplied about 375,000 cups of yogurt — nearly 28,100 to students in 19 school districts in the two states, and the rest to local food banks.
Chobani, which has a large production plant in Twin Falls, Idaho, earlier partnered with Feeding America to donate yogurt cups to food banks around the U.S.
The company was also an early enrollee in Nourish New York, which provides funding to food banks for the purchase of agricultural products from in-state farms and processors.
Mark Broadhurst, Chobani senior director of public affairs, said Curds “was a good fit and something we thought can make a difference, and it has.” Dairy West paid production costs to Chobani, which did not profit.
Norwich, N.Y-based Chobani says it uses three cups of milk to make one cup of its Greek yogurt, partly to increase the 5.3-ounce cup’s thickness, creaminess and protein content.
Broadhurst said Curds + Kindness and the other programs succeeded “and are something we need to continue because COVID is not ending, the economy is not in recovery yet and hunger continues to be a tremendous challenge.”
“We’ve been working on some advocacy to continue supporting children,” he said. Chobani has been in discussions with key members of Congress about a need the company sees to direct more funding for hunger relief — particularly in schools — in the newest coronavirus aid package.
August 08, 2020 at 06:15AM
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Dairy West-led program donates nearly 1 million pounds of milk product - Capital Press
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