Dairy Giant Dean Foods Files for Bankruptcy Protection

Milk still has a place in the American refrigerator, but it’s now sharing that space with juices, flavored soda waters and a myriad of other options. On Tuesday, Dean Foods, one of the nation’s most well-known milk sellers, filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection and said it may sell the company off to the Dairy Farmers of America.

https://www.chicagotribune.com/business ... story.html

Just maintain the flow of French Onion Dip and no one will have to die.

Hi,

Bowman Dairy, which had locations in Highland Park, Chicago and beyond, was a rival of Dean Foods.

Dean Foods went with the waxy paper cartons hyping its sanitary single use. Bowman Dairy stuck with reusable glass containers. Dean acquired Bowman in the mid-60's.

Regards,
Cathy2

A report I read elsewhere said that aside from less milk being consumed, Dean also lost the business from Walmart and another chain.

I think the issue with dairy in general is that the millennial generation (and generation Z) are not falling to the marketing anymore of a cows milk being good for human health. A complementary good to milk like cereal has seen sales drop exponentially the past couple years which is a reason why you see cereals in grocery stores on sale at times for $2/box. A large swath of the consumer buying public are are choosing alternatives to cows milk including soy, oat, almond ,etc for both cooking and drinking.

Polster wrote:

I think the issue with dairy in general is that the millennial generation (and generation Z) are not falling to the marketing anymore of a cows milk being good for human health. A complementary good to milk like cereal has seen sales drop exponentially the past couple years which is a reason why you see cereals in grocery stores on sale at times for $2/box. A large swath of the consumer buying public are are choosing alternatives to cows milk including soy, oat, almond ,etc for both cooking and drinking.

Interestingly Dean Foods once owned White Wave which makes Silk -- a big producer of soy and almond milk. White Wave was spun off in 2013 and later bought by Danone.

By the way, the Dean Foods that filed for bankruptcy is actually a Texas-based company once known as Suiza foods. In 2001 they "merged" with Dean Foods and kept the Dean name. I put merged in quotes because I thought the merger was really a takeover by Suiza.

At that time we had Dean stock in my son's portfolio as they had several products he liked. Sometime after the merger we sold the stock with a decent gain. I never regretted the sale, especially now.

I worked at Dean Foods for number of years. Back then, the company, while largely dependent on dairy, was diversifying into other foods, especially vegetables, including the Freshlike, and briefly, Birdseye brands. It was a way to protect itself from over dependence on the dairy business. To oversimplify, when Suiza bought out Dean and changed its name to Dean Foods, Suiza management sold off many of the non-dairy divisions, investing further in traditional dairy. See how well it works to put all your eggs in one basket?

Borden’s files for bankruptcy.
https://www.cnn.com/2020/01/06/business ... index.html

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