Excerpt from the Dayton Daily News
Two major milk producers have filed for bankruptcy leaving some to wonder what the future holds for the dairy industry and local dairy producers.
Young's Jersey Dairy has been around for 151 years.
The Yellow Springs staple is known for its ice cream and cheese, but with Borden Dairy Company and Dean Foods filing for bankruptcy, will this local business feel the effects?
"We're really tiny compared to those folks, we milk our own cows here, we use our own milk to make our cheese and etc., so it really doesn't affect us a whole lot," said Dan Young, Young's CEO.
However, they do buy the dairy for their ice cream from a company that's a part of Dean Foods.
"So far we've been in contact with them and everything is fine, and so we're hopeful they will have a good outcome,” said Young.
Thomas Traynor, the Dean of Wright State University's College of Business, said, in this case, the change is milk costs going up and demand going down.
"Consumers are buying far fewer dairy products as they choose substitutes like soy milk or almond milk, and so the industry is naturally contracting because of that and can't support as many firms as it used to,” said Traynor.
Traynor said those sales have dropped about 40-percent over the last ten years or so.
"Industries have their ups and downs,” said Traynor. “This is sort of a natural process of a constantly changing economy, so it isn't something we should be terribly surprised about."
He believes it's too early to tell what kind of impact this can have on dairy farmers, but said there could be fewer producing dairy in the future.
