People are cooking at home more than before.
American dairy giant Land O’Lakes Inc. is selling record amounts of butter as consumers cook more at home, helping boost profits even as the pandemic upends global commodity markets.
By Justina Vasquez and Isis Almeida from Bloomberg
The Minnesota-based cooperative expects butter sales to reach 275 million to 300 million pounds in 2020, an increase of more than 20% from a normal year, said Chief Executive Officer Beth Ford. That’s more than offset a decline in food services as lockdowns from New York to Los Angeles slashed demand from restaurants, which usually account for 15% to 20% of the company’s business.
Dairy farmers across the U.S. were forced to dump milk as stay-at-home orders curbed demand from food services, which use up about 50% of American cheese production. Schools were also shut, slashing consumption of fluid milk at a time when cows had just entered the peak milk production period. Still, Land O’Lakes says butter was flying off the shelves.
“Often times, even for the retail business, what you do is you make a lot of butter because it’s peak milk production time, and you store it for the key season,” during the holidays, Ford said in an interview. “But the buying was so strong that we didn’t do that, because we were selling right off the line.”
Meeting rising butter demand means that Land O’Lakes, like many other packaged-goods companies, had to adapt its production lines, by removing some products from shelves, said Ford, who took the top job in 2018. Read more from Bloomberg.
Follow News Without Politics for more interesting and amazing, important, and relevant U.S. and world news stories plus health, entertainment, sports, weather, food and more without media bias.
Stay informed daily. News fair and balanced, ahead of influence.
