Where a farmer could add 1,000 cows to herd overnight
A farmer could add 1,000 cows to his herd, and we wouldn’t know until our milk truck arrives at his farm, according to John Lanigan, the Glanbia Foods vice-president in charge of cheese operations.
He relies on two customer service staff working in the field to liaise with the suppliers of more than one million gallons of milk per day to Glanbia cheese plants at Gooding and Twin Falls.
There are no contracts with milk suppliers, it has traditionally been seen as a “business-to-business” relationship.
Now, John is working on improved liaison with suppliers, with Glanbia’s main priority in this review being to make its milk trucking more efficient.
In turn, one of the priorities for Idaho’s farmers is that a milk buyer collects milk on time at a competitive price.
“Cheese sets the milk price,” says Lanigan.
Glanbia also pays a milk price premium to reflect the current buoyancy of the US dairy products market.
For the first time, Glanbia has hired an agronomist to help them work better with farmers, and offers a “Grow for the Gold” bonus to expanding suppliers — which the company expects will eventually result in a 15% milk production increase from individual farmers.
This will enable Glanbia to expand the 45% of its milk which comes from individual suppliers, while reducing the 55% which comes from co-ops.
The individual suppliers get a higher milk price. In the US, co-ops are more inclined to “play the field” with their milk, so purchasers like Glanbia find individual suppliers more reliable.
However, co-ops help processors to even out milk supply across the year.
Milk volumes coming into Glanbia cheese plants vary only 12% from peak to trough.
