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October 13, 2004

CWT seeks more herd retirements.... HP Hood looks at ice cream production, expands warehouse capacity.... Cheese plant prepares for OSHA meeting.... Vermont strikes dairy deal with Cuba.... Global Marketwatch.... Starbucks leader named.... Grocery janitors win settlement.... Supermarket union update.... Odds-and-Ends.... Stock Market Ticker....More news at www.idfa.org.

DAIRY BUSINESS BRIEFS

Producer-funded Cooperatives Working Together (CWT) is again seeking total herd retirement bids as part of its milk supply management program. Bids will be accepted through Oct. 29. Last year, CWT accepted 299 of 2,038 bids submitted; nearly 33,000 cows and 608 million pounds of milk were removed from the market. This year's herd retirement program aims to remove 870 million pounds of milk, equaling about 49,000 cows. CWT management will allocate 80% of this year's funds to herd retirement, and the remaining 20% to export efforts. The program is funded by dues assessments as well as funds left over from last year's program. The CWT Export Assistance program continues to accept bids for both cheese and butter at the target price levels of $1.40 per pound and $1.30 per pound, respectively. (Aberdeen American News, South Dakota)

Chelsea, Mass.-based HP Hood is considering consolidating Hood ice cream production at a Suffield, Conn., facility with a recently acquired plant in Lancaster, Pa. The Suffield facility has about 200 employees; the majority will be let go if the plan is implemented. Hood also produces ultra-pasteurized milk products in Suffield and recently invested $6 million in upgrades to that area of the plant, which will remain open. The Lancaster facility is part of Binghamton, N.Y.-based Crowley Foods, acquired earlier this year by Hood. (Hartford Courant, Hartford, Conn.)....In other Hood news, the company plans to expand its shelf-stable storage capacity at a Syracuse, N.Y., property where it already leases space for shelf-stable creamers. Hood plans to lease a new 34,500-square-foot warehouse from the owner as soon as the building is completed later this year. The facility is expected to employ 15 people. (The Post-Standard, Syracuse, N.Y.)

Kosher cheese company Primo Foods, Ogdensburg, N.Y., plans to add American and Italian cheeses production capability and make various repairs to bring its facility up to health and safety codes. The company expects to expand its employee base from the current 50 to about 200 by 2006. As reported previously in D-brief, Primo Foods is preparing for a meeting this week with the U.S. Occupational Health and Safety Administration (OSHA) regarding the plant's multiple OSHA violations and resulting fines totaling $184,900. Company officials contend that OSHA did not take the expansion into account during the recent inspections; a company spokesperson noted that the inspections took place just four months after Primo Foods opened its Ogdensburg plant, "while employees were setting up the slicing room and cleaning out space for the new cheese-making machines." Primo Foods is a unit of St. Lawrence Food Corp., and is affiliated with Lewis County Dairy Corp. and Ahava Foods of Brooklyn. (Watertown Daily Times, N.Y.)

Vermont plans to send at least 100 dairy cows to Cuba in early 2005 as part of a $7 million deal for export of dairy cattle, nonfat dry milk and apples from that state to the island nation. The first shipment of cattle is to include 50 Holstein and 50 Jersey heifers. Finalization of the powdered milk and apple export provisions are not yet complete. (Associated Press)

GLOBAL MARKETWATCH

An experiment in Scotland with selenium-heavy feed rations for cattle could lead to the introduction of selenium-enriched milk and beef for humans. The essential trace mineral selenium may help prevent prostate, bowel and skin cancer as well as other life-threatening diseases; infertility in both men and women is also linked to selenium deficiency. A joint venture between British feeds manufacturer Davidson Brothers, six Scottish farms and an undisclosed American company is underwriting the research. Products have not yet been made public, but initial tests show that it may be possible to increase the selenium content in milk, beef, eggs and poultry by as much as three times as that available in current products. (The Express)

The 65.74% share of Parmalat Dominicana SA owned by Italian dairy company Parmalat Finanziaria SpA's subsidiary Curcastle Corporation NV was sold to the Dominican company PAR SA and other buyers for $8.2 million. Licensing of Parmalat brands will be part of the deal. Also, the purchasers will repay $930,794 in Parmalat Dominicana debt by 2006. (AFX European Focus).... In other Parmalat news, Parmalat filed a lawsuit against Bank of America in a U.S. district court in North Carolina last week. The company reports that the suit is part of court-appointed administrator Enrico Bondi's legal campaign to pursue damages from parties he ''contends had a determining role in the collapse of Parmalat." Italian news agency ANSA estimates the case is worth about $10 billion. Parmalat has also recently filed suits against banks Citigroup Inc., UBS, Deutsche Bank and Credit Suisse First Boston. (Associated Press)

CUSTOMER CLIPS

James L. Donald, 50, will succeed Orin C. Smith as chief executive and president of Starbucks after the 62-year-old Smith retires on March 31. Donald joined the coffee company in 2002 as president for North America operations. He stated that his promotion will not significantly change the company's strategy. (Seattle Post-Intelligencer)

California supermarket janitors won a $22.4 million settlement in a class-action suit from three grocery chains and a cleaning contractor. About 1,000 California janitors joined the suit, in which they claimed they were overworked, denied breaks and not paid for overtime. The chains were Safeway and Vons, which together settled for $14 million; Albertsons, which settled for $4.5 million; and Kroger Co.-owned Ralph's, which settled for $3 million. The contractor, Building One Service Solutions, settled for $900,000. (The San Francisco Chronicle)

Supermarket Union Update: A contract set to expire between The Kroger Co. and 8,500 United Food & Commercial Workers (UFCW) employees will be extended indefinitely, but a strike vote is still expected to take place today. The contract covers cashiers, grocery baggers and clerks in meat, produce and delicatessen departments at 70 Kroger stores in Cincinnati, northern Kentucky and southeastern Indiana markets. Wages, health care and pensions are the top issues in negotiations that include a federal mediator. (Associated Press)... Meanwhile, in Colorado and Wyoming, 23,000 UFCW employees of Safeway, King Soopers and Albertsons rejected a revised contract offer over health care issues. The strike deadline had already been postponed to Oct. 16; negotiations were scheduled to continue this week. (The Gazette, Colorado Springs, Colo.)

IDFA NEWS

Mark Your Calendar: Dairy Forum Set for January 9-12, 2005
Be sure to save the dates of January 9-12, 2005, to attend the Dairy Forum, which will be held at the Disney Yacht and Beach Club in Orlando, Fla. IDFA's annual meeting has become widely recognized as the most important dairy processor-producer meeting of the year! The 2005 program will include keynote addresses from Tom Donohue, President and CEO, U.S. Chamber of Commerce and from IDFA President and CEO Connie Tipton. In addition, Andrew Ferrier, CEO, Fonterra Cooperative Group, will give his perspective on global dairy markets, and Washington, D.C., insider Stu Rothenberg will be back to talk about the outcome of the U.S. elections and what's in store for the next four years. Watch www.idfa.org for details in the coming weeks about the full agenda and registration information. ###

ODDS-AND-ENDS

Meadow Gold Dairies-Oahu workers overwhelmingly approved a new five-year contract in Hawaii on Sunday. Meanwhile Foremost Dairies-Hawaii shut down operations Monday, instead of Nov. 13 as previously scheduled. Union officials note that Foremost employees are expected to either retire or find employment at Meadow Gold. (Associated Press)... Nearly 200 primary school students in China were hospitalized following a Sept. 30 milk contamination incident. Students in Nanping, a city in east China's Fujian Province, drank the contaminated chocolate and sweet milk produced by the Dacheng Dairy Share-holding Co. Ltd. Children suffered from acute gastroenteritis; all have since been released from the hospital. The dairy is under investigation by city and regional officials. (Xinhua News Agency)... Hard-hit by four major hurricanes, the 2004-05 Florida citrus season is expected to produce the smallest orange crop in 11 years, reports the U.S. Department of Agriculture. Florida growers anticipate 27% fewer oranges this season than in 2003-04, while grapefruit production is expected drop 63% compared to last season. (Washington Post)

STOCK MARKET TICKER

As of 10/12/04, market close.

Company/Symbol		Last Trade		Change over Previous Close		Change over Last Week's D-brief
ConAgra Foods/CAG Dean Foods/DF Dreyer's/DRYR General Mills/GIS Groupe Danone/DA Hershey Foods/HSY Ingles Markets/IMKTA 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		26.01 29.79 79.95 44.20 15.51 46.27 12.27 31.17 15.10 20.25 19.42 33.75 27.64 32.95 35.13 14.75 03.82		+0.01 +0.39 +0.00 -0.02 -0.17 -0.09 -0.13 -0.04 +0.02 -0.18 -0.38 -0.25 -0.14 -0.14 +0.06 -0.40 -0.06		-0.20 -0.27 +0.00 -0.90 -0.38 -0.86 +0.12 -0.23 -0.46 -0.23 -0.02 +0.40 -0.79 -0.24 -0.54 -0.35 -0.11
Source: Yahoo! Finance

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ABOUT D-BRIEF

D-brief is written by Dairy Field magazine, a Stagnito Communications Inc. publication, www.dairyfield.com. It is provided for the benefit of the industry by the International Dairy Foods Association (IDFA), www.idfa.org.

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