James Carper

In northwest Wisconsin, about 25 miles from the Minnesota border, Schuman Cheese makes award-winning cheeses with techniques borrowed from French and Italian cheesemakers.

Eight years ago, I put a carton of milk in my shopping cart without thinking about it. I sliced cheese for a sandwich and scooped ice cream for dessert with a similar lack of thought about its origins.

Neal Schuman is perhaps the most ardent defender of Parmesan cheese in the United States. Incensed that some cheesemakers were adulterating grated Parm with cellulose, Schuman organized the True Cheese campaign, warning consumers and retailers that all was not right in shelf-stable grated Parmesan products.

The U.S. arm of Arla, the Denmark-based dairy cooperative, is growing fast. The company has placement of its natural cheeses and cream cheese in 6,000 stores in the United States.

Coverage of our 24th annual ranking of the largest dairy processors in North America is available here. Nestle USA once again heads the list and Ellsworth Cooperative Creamery holds down the No. 100 spot.

The state of North America’s dairy industry is constantly in motion. Since our last report, dairies have been on an acquisition spree. And the deals kept happening even after we finished tabulating the 2016 revenues of the 100 largest dairy processing companies based in Canada, the United States and Mexico.

It’s easy to get wrapped up in your day-to-day tasks. Perhaps you are testing finished products or running new concepts through a pilot plant. Or maybe you are making sales calls or purchasing ingredients. Whatever your job, you just want to get through today.

Dairy processors can see their future in this one statistic: 97% of millennials are likely to buy store brands. Someone has to manufacture those brands. It might as well be your company. When Dairy Foods surveyed its readers in 2016, it found that 40% do provide contract manufacturing services.

There are jobs awaiting you in the dairy industry. According to Dairy Foods’ 2017 Hiring Survey, 70% of the companies we surveyed report they are actively seeking to fill one or more full-time or part-time positions.

Frozen novelties is a $4.9 billion annual business. Sales were up 4% but unit sales rose only 2.2% in the 52 weeks ended Feb. 19, 2017, according to IRI, a Chicago-based market research firm.