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March 30, 2005

AMPI, Bravo! Foods financials... Schoep's Ice Cream to open new freezer facility... CoolBrands adds board member... New Product Scanner... Investment firm to buy into Pathmark, Wild Oats... Safeway, union reach contract... New merchandising leader for Winn-Dixie... Dairy Cost Accounting Workshop... Odds-and-Ends... Stock Market Ticker... More news at www.idfa.org.

DAIRY BUSINESS BRIEFS

New Ulm, Minn.-based cooperative Associated Milk Producers Inc. posted a record sales year despite a December fire that temporarily shut down its butter processing and packaging plant. The co-op reported sales of about $1.3 billion in 2004, more than 15% higher than the 2003 sales of $1.1 billion. The robust sales figures were attributed to higher prices for cheese as well as increased sales volume. (Star Tribune, Minneapolis)

North Palm Beach, Fla.-based Bravo! Foods International Corp. saw a jump of nearly 179% for its 2004 sales. The company reports that its revenues reached $3.3 million, compared to $1.2 million in 2003. This increase is attributed to a change in the company's method of revenue recognition in the United States, commencing Jan. 1, 2004, when Bravo! began acting as the principal in these transactions, rather than as an agent. In early 2004, Bravo! also began to phase out its Looney Tunes flavored milk products and to develop four new branded U.S. product lines, including the Slammers line of Marvel Comics Super Heroes branded flavored milks. In addition, Bravo! began to do business with an unnamed, third-party Middle East dairy processor during the second quarter 2004. (AMonline.com, company report)

Madison, Wis.-based Schoep's Ice Cream will open a new $7 million, 23,000-square-foot freezer facility in May as part of its strategy to remain a regional favorite. The independently owned company is also expanding its product line. New products include last week's rollout of Badger Tracks (vanilla ice cream with fudge, caramel and chocolate chunks) with the Bucky Badger icon, timed to tap into the success of University of Wisconsin-Madison men's basketball team, which reached the Elite Eight in the NCAA tournament. Schoep's also recently launched a Kidz Korner line of ice creams that features such flavors as cotton candy as well as lower fat content. (Wisconsin State Journal, Madison, Wis.)

Arthur Waldbaum, a 20-year veteran of the supermarket and frozen foods business, will join the board of directors of Toronto-based CoolBrands International Inc. He succeeds Joe Binder, who resigned for personal reasons. (Company report)

NEW PRODUCT SCANNER

Dreyer's Grand Ice Cream CEO Gary Rogers unveiled plans for Dibs, a new, portable ice cream snack, during an interview on CNBC in New York last week. Rogers described the "popable, munchable" product as tiny chunks of ice cream covered in chocolate (no scooping required). The five-flavor Dibs line from Oakland, Calif.-based Dreyer's will roll out in c-stores in April and nationally in retail freezer cases in May. (CNBC/Dow Jones Business Video) ... In other Dreyer's news, the company will debut a Haagen Dazs Light premium ice cream line in April, including a roll-out in Kroger stores in Indiana and Ohio. The new products have half the fat and one-third fewer calories than regular Haagen Dazs products. (Fort Wayne News Sentinel)

San Antonio, Texas-based H.E. Butt Grocery Co.'s (HEB) private label ice cream line Creamy Creations, introduced in 1998, now makes up nearly 55% of sales of ice cream products in the retail chain's 300-plus stores. This summer, Creamy Creations will add new flavors including apple pie (with apple slices and pie crust) as well as four low-carb flavors. The HEB chain celebrates its 100th anniversary this year. In other news, HEB recently partnered with Grupo Industrial Lala, the largest dairy producer in Mexico, to manufacture and sell Grupo milk, yogurt and sour cream products exclusively in HEB stores. (San Antonio Express-News)

Minneapolis-based International Dairy Queen Inc. (IDQ) will launch the Berry CheeseQuake Blizzard line in April, as part of its 20th anniversary celebration of the Blizzard launch. In establishing the line, the company is building on the June 2003 introduction of the Strawberry CheeseQuake flavor by adding two new flavors of Raspberry CheeseQuake and Blueberry CheeseQuake. IDQ plans to introduce several other Blizzard flavors throughout 2005. The launches will be supported with an $8 million national television advertising campaign. Billions of Blizzards have been served in 75 different flavors since the product's debut in 1985. (Company report)

CUSTOMER CLIPS

Los Angeles-based Yucaipa Cos. LLC, a private equity firm founded in 1986 by veteran supermarket executive and investor Ron Burkle, will invest $150 million in a 40% stake of struggling Carteret, N.J.-based Pathmark Stores Inc. The deal is subject to approval by Pathmark shareholders and includes a five-year management agreement; funds will be used to upgrade the 142 existing Pathmark stores and to open new stores. In other news, Yucaipa will purchase 9.2% of Boulder, Colo.-based Wild Oats Markets Inc. (The Record-New Jersey)

Safeway Inc. supermarket employees in Colorado and Wyoming ratified a new four-year contract last Saturday. The contract encompasses 9,000 United Food and Commercial Workers in the two states and is similar to the one drafted by a federal mediator and approved by workers at Kroger Co.-owned King Soopers and City Market stores earlier this month. The union has been negotiating with King Soopers, City Market, Safeway and Albertsons Inc. on new contracts since July; Albertsons has not yet reached a contract with its workers. (Associated Press)

Tom Robbins has joined Winn-Dixie Stores Inc. as senior vice president of merchandising as part of the company's strategy to emerge from Chapter 11 bankruptcy. Robbins is a 37-year veteran of the supermarket industry with experience at The Kroger Co., Price Chopper Supermarkets, The Great A&P Tea Company, Thriftway Food & Drug and Delchamps Inc. Dick Judd, who has served for nearly two years as senior vice president of supply chain and merchandising for Winn-Dixie, will now focus completely on supply chain management, which includes logistics, distribution and manufacturing. (Company report)

IDFA NEWS

Register Now for May's Cost Accounting Workshop
Registration is now open for IDFA's Dairy Cost Accounting Workshop, scheduled for May 17-18 at the Embassy Suites O'Hare in Rosemont, Ill. This program will provide dairy cost accountants with the crucial industry and business knowledge needed to advance their companies and careers. In addition to accounting basics and dairy industry background, the workshop will cover such topics as how to apply production efficiency strategies to the accounting function; how to manage milk price risk; and how to effectively communicate financial reports to non-financial managers. For complete details or to register, click here.

ODDS-AND-ENDS

To celebrate the successful national introduction of its Curiously Delicious Cheese Curds, A&W Restaurants will give away a free root beer to customers who purchase the Cheese Curds this Friday, April 1. In addition, each restaurant outlet will award free Cheese Curds for an entire year to one winner (entries accepted through April 8), with an additional winner selected online at www.curdcrazy.com. The April Fools Day promotion will be supported with a national print advertisement. After selling in Wisconsin A&W outlets for years, the fried Wisconsin white cheddar chunks were added to the menus last year at the majority of the 500 single-brand A&W Restaurants across the country; most of the 500-plus multi-brand A&W outlets have also begun selling Cheese Curds this year. A&W Restaurants is a subsidiary of Louisville, Ky.-based Yum! Brands, Inc. (Company report) ... People who eat sugarless yogurt have less plaque, less gingivitis and fewer bacteria that cause bad breath, according to researchers at Tsurumi University in Japan. The findings were reported at the annual meeting of International Association for Dental Research earlier this month. (The Dallas Morning News) ... In Passing: Wallace Pettit, founder of Hastings, Minn.-based Polka Dot Dairy and co-founder of the Tom Thumb chain of convenience stores in Minnesota and Wisconsin, died last week at the age of 74. (St. Paul Pioneer Press, Minn.)

STOCK MARKET TICKER

As of 3/29/05, market close.

Company/Symbol		Last Trade		Change over Previous Close		Change over Last Week's D-brief
Dean Foods/DF Dreyer's/DRYR General Mills/GIS Groupe Danone/DA Hershey Foods/HSY Ingles Markets/IMKTE Kraft Foods/KFT Kroger/KR Ruddick Corp./RDK Safeway/SWY Saputo/SAP.TO Supervalu/SVU Unilever PLC/UL Weis Markets/WMK Wimm Bill Dann/WBD Winn-Dixie/WIN*		33.14 80.65 49.32 19.59 59.64 13.05 32.23 15.70 23.06 18.36 36.85 32.65 39.24 37.00 18.00 N/A		-0.23 -0.04 -0.69 -0.08 -0.52 +0.00 +0.13 +0.12 -0.30 +0.08 +0.25 -0.04 +0.49 -0.78 -1.38 N/A		-0.12 -0.01 -0.10 +0.12 -1.67 +0.00 +0.03 +0.02 +0.39 +0.44 -0.40 +0.44 +1.25 -0.22 +0.74 N/A
*The New York Stock Exchange suspended trade of WIN as a result of the company's filing of its Chapter 11 petition on February 21, 2005. Source: Yahoo! Finance

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