With the ongoing pandemic, food production industries are suffering as many restaurants keep their doors closed, and supply chains are compromised by movement restrictions. However, a faction of U.S. dairy farmers has come up with a way to avoid wasting excess produce.
The unsaleable milk is now helping feed people in need.
The supervisor of Bloom Township in Illinois, TJ Somer, was alarmed by news reports about how dairy farmers were being forced to dump excess milk because many of their regular businesses like restaurants and schools had been closed due to quarantine restrictions amid the CCP virus pandemic. Thus, Somer put in a call to Kilgus Farms near Fairbury.
As reported by ABC 7 Chicago, Kilgus Farms has started a sales initiative offloading around 700 gallons (approx. 2,650 liters) of milk per week to the township at cost price. This initiative has offered the dairy farm the opportunity to spare even more milk from being dumped, while simultaneously helping a community in crisis.
The Lansing Journal reported that the township was already in the midst of an effort of offering food to lower-income families amid the CCP (Chinese Communist Party) virus, commonly known as the novel coronavirus, and used the same system to let more people know about their free-milk program.
The town’s “free-milk” giveaway was organized on April 23, 2020, and residents lined up in their cars to receive the welcome donation. “The South Side has been hit hard by the pandemic,” Somer told ABC 7 Chicago. “We’re thrilled to be a part of the solution.”
“As we’re putting food in cars, [people] are telling us they never expected to be here,” said the township’s food pantry manager Mike Noonan. “They never thought they'd need this.”
Demand for assistance from the food pantry, Noonan added, has increased by a shocking 300 percent since the CCP virus outbreak occurred. Unemployment and food scarcity is threatening to take a firm hold in more economically deprived areas.
“You can tell by the lines coming through, it’s needed in the south suburbs,” Chicago Heights Mayor David Gonzalez added.
In addition, Bloom Township Food Pantry shared a picture on Facebook of their “free-milk” giveaway drive that suggests the initiative would continue every Thursday from 12 p.m. to 3 p.m.
However, Illinois is not the only state to respond to excess milk dumping with a benevolent solution. Dairy farmers from Syracuse, New York state, also organized a drive-thru milk giveaway on April 22 at a Destiny USA Mall parking lot.
As reported by Syracuse.com, around 7,700 gallons (approx. 29,148 liters) of milk were distributed between schools, seniors, and families in need of milk.
(Yanawut Suntornkij/Shutterstock)
Amid the mass closure of restaurants and schools across the United States, dairy farmers have primarily lost the customers of wholesale foodservice markets, reports Reuters. Sales of significant dairy export markets have also subsided as many borders and supply chains remain temporarily closed.
On April 23, the Illinois Governor, JB Pritzker, announced that he would extend the state’s stay-at-home restrictions through the end of May 2020.
“We are in possibly the most difficult part of this journey,” Pritzker said, according to ABC 7. “But this is the part where we have to dig in and we have to understand that the sacrifices we have made as a state are working, and we need to keep going a little while longer to finish the job.”
Dumping milk is a devastating last resort that most dairy farmers wish to avoid. As such, the dairy farmers countrywide plan to continue donating excess milk for as long as the need persists.
