JBS acquires assets, facilities from closure of Greeley Mountain States Rosen plant

https://www.greeleytribune.com/2020/07/24/jbs-buys-greeley-lamb-plant-mountain-states-rosen/

• Mountain States Rosen, a Wyoming-based cooperative of lamb producers in the U.S., will be closing its Greeley plant by the end of July.
  • All 212 employees will be laid off and all operations will cease by the end of July, according to Cindy Hasbrouck, Mountain States Rosen Vice President Human Resources.
  • The company controls a fifth of the U.S. lamb market.
• The company’s facilities and certain assets were acquired by JBS USA whose Greeley beef processing plant sits just across the street from the Mountain States plant.
• Mountain States Rosen sent a letter to the Colorado Department of Labor and Employment in June explaining that the sale of the building was the result of Chapter 11 bankruptcy. JBS successfully bid for the facility during a bankruptcy auction on July 16^th.
• According to Cameron Bruett, head of corporate affairs for JBS USA and Pilgrim’s Pride, JBS plans to invest in the facility and reopen as a value-added beef operation that will create new jobs in Greeley. He feels that the acquisition presents an exciting opportunity to provide value-added and premium, retail ready beef products to consumers in Colorado and across the U.S.

Walmart, Kroger bottle their own milk and shake up American dairy industry

https://www.wsj.com/articles/walmart-kroger-bottle-their-own-milk-and-shake-up-american-dairy-industry-11595872190?mod=hp_lead_pos5

• When buying milk, Americans often reach for the lowest-priced option, store brand milk. Kroger, Walmart, and Albertsons will be expanding those offerings with their new milk-bottling plants.
• The $40 billion U.S. milk industry has been dealing with pressure by consumers choosing dairy alternatives or other beverage options, such as bottle water and juice. With grocers’ now moving into the bottling business, the industry will face even more profit reduction.
• Just in 2019, approximately 3,300 dairy-cow herds disappeared. These disappearances came along with low milk prices, tensions with export customers and processing plant closures across the country.
• Dairy demand for products such as yogurt, butter and chesse, continues to grow. However the annual per capita U.S. milk consumption has dropped about 40% in the past four decades.
• Dean Foods was one of Wal-Mart’s biggest milk suppliers for decades.
  • Its Louisville plant was processing as much as 1.2 million gallons of milk a week, 70 percent of that going to 130 Wal-Mart stores in four states.
  • Whether it be a snowstorm or some other issue, they always made sure to supply Wal-Mart before other customers.
• In 2016, Walmart announced that they would build a milk-processing plant of its own in Fort Wayne, Indiana.
  • Dean executives projected the move would siphon away about 100 million of the 2.6 billion gallons a year it sold.
• One year after Walmart finished the plant, Dean’s volume of its DairyPure milk sold down by an estimated 7.5 percent.
  • This situation caused Dean to terminate contracts with dairy farmers due to the decline in sales.
  • Joe Kelsay, a sixth generation Indiana farmer was one of those farms that had their contract terminated. He searched for somewhere else to send his milk, but had no luck. By the spring of 2019, Mr. Kelsay had sold his herd and the last of their milking equipment.
    • My Kelsay said he lost part of his identity when his herd was loaded onto trucks. “We cried as we watched the cows,” he said. “It was like a death in the family. You had to choose to stop life support.”

Boxed beef prices

www.nationalbeefwire.com

• Choice boxed beef: $202.55 (+0.78)
• Select boxed beef: $190.13 (-0.50)