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December 8, 2004

Lactalis USA acquires Rondele Specialty Foods... Tillamook cheese facility expansion... AMPI butter factory closed following fire... HP Hood to close ice cream plant in Pennsylvania, expand in Connecticut.. Global Marketwatch... Burger King children's meals offer milk option... Supermarket financials... Exhibit sales underway for Worldwide Food Expo... Odds-and-Ends... Stock Market Ticker... More news at www.idfa.org.

DAIRY BUSINESS BRIEFS

New York-based Lactalis American Group Inc. has acquired Merrill, Wis.-based Rondele Specialty Foods. The rondele line of gourmet spreadable cheeses joins the Lactalis USA line of specialty cheeses, including President brie, camembert and feta. Lactalis USA is a subsidiary of global dairy player Groupe Lactalis, based in France. As the retail specialty cheese division of Lactalis American Group, Lactalis USA markets cheeses through its Domestic and Import Divisions. The domestic division markets President branded cheeses from the company's Belmont, Wis., and Turlock, Calif., plants. (Company report)

The Tillamook County Creamery Association plans a $50 million expansion that will nearly triple the capacity of its Boardman, Ore., facility upon the project's completion in 2006. The company plans to add 65,000 square feet to the existing 85,000-square-foot Columbia River Processing Inc. plant, which opened in 2001 and makes medium-sharp cheddar, monterey jack, pepper jack, colby jack and mozzarella. In 2003, the plant made 46 million pounds of cheese. (Associated Press)

A fire swept through the Associated Milk Producers Inc. (AMPI) butter facility in New Ulm, Minn., on Dec. 1, melting much of the 3 million pounds of butter stored there. Clean-up included the spreading of sand on the melted butter, which spread down some streets and was eventually gelled by Minnesota's cold weather. AMPI lined up other butter makers to service its accounts while damage to the operation is assessed. The plant employs about 180 people, who were all evacuated. The co-op's headquarters are in a separate building and were not damaged. AMPI owns 13 operating plants in Minnesota, Wisconsin, Iowa and Nebraska. (Associated Press; Saint Paul Pioneer Press, Minn.)

HP Hood's East Coast ice cream volume will be consolidated in a plant in Suffield, Conn., with the Kemps Foods plant in Lancaster, Pa., to close by July 2005. The Pennsylvania facility processes ice cream, drinks and frozen desserts; fluid processing will close in April, with ice cream manufacturing shutting down in July. The Hood plant in Suffield produces 250 types of ice cream and frozen dessert products, and has a capacity of more than 20 million gallons. The expansion there will lead to 225 full-time jobs next year, up from the current 140. The Connecticut Department of Economic and Community Development is providing a $2 million loan for machinery, equipment and renovations, while the town of Suffield will expand wastewater treatment to accommodate the new volume. The Kemps plant was the former headquarters of locally owned Penn Dairies, which sold PenSupreme products. Binghamton, N.Y.-based Crowley Foods purchased the plant in 1990 and renamed it Kemps. Crowley became part of Chelsea, Mass.-based HP Hood earlier this year; at the same time Hood purchased Crowley's sister company, Minneapolis-based Marigold Foods. (Intelligencer Journal, Lancaster, Pa.; Associated Press)

GLOBAL MARKETWATCH

Europe's biggest dairy company, Arla Foods amba, Aarhus, Denmark, will merge with Netherlands-based Campina. The new company, to be based in the Danish capital of Copenhagen, will be called Campina Arla and will have estimated annual revenues of US$13.4 billion. It will remain a cooperative (owned by 21,000 dairy producers) and will employ a total of 28,000 people. The merger is expected to be completed by March, subject to regulatory approval by the European Union, the boards of both companies and a member vote. (Associated Press)

General Mills Korea is targeting annual sales of US$64.3 million by 2009 from 200 new Haagen Dazs ice cream stores in South Korea. The local unit of General Mills Inc. plans to invest US$38 million over the next five years for the expansion, which will include the opening of 40 new stores annually starting in 2005. Haagen Dazs launched in South Korea in 1991 and currently operates 17 stores nationwide, while supplying more than 7,000 other retail outlets. (Asia Pulse)

CUSTOMER CLIPS

Miami-based Burger King Corp. expanded its Kids Meal options last month to include a choice of an 8-oz. carton of 1% milk (white or chocolate), Minute Maid apple juice, or soda. Kids can also choose a side of either fries or Mott's Strawberry Flavored Applesauce. (Company report)

Retailer Financials: Hurricanes in the Southeast this summer dampened profit expectations for Boise, Idaho-based Albertsons Inc., which reported profits for the August-October quarter of $107 million (29 cents a share), on nearly $10 billion in sales. Analysts had anticipated 33 cents a share in earnings. A year earlier, earnings were $91 million (25 cents a share) on $8.7 billion in sales. Revenues were boosted by the acquisition earlier this year of more than 200 Shaw's and Star Markets in New England, as well as Albertsons' entry into the discount food market in late August with its Extreme Inc. stores in Texas and Louisiana. The company's new "Check the Price" initiative has dropped prices on many of the highest volume items in Albertsons' 1,800 grocery stores nationwide; the program is expected to be a major force behind future improved performance. (Associated Press) ... Kroger Co. reported that its third-quarter earnings increased more than 29% to $142.7 million (19 cents a share) for the three months ending Nov. 6, versus $110.2 million (15 cents a share) a year ago. Kroger sales for the latest quarter increased 6% to $12.9 billion, up from $12.1 billion a year ago. (Associated Press) ... Carteret, N.J.-based Pathmark Stores Inc. reported a loss of $3.6 million (12 cents a share) on sales of $979.9 million for the quarter ending Oct. 30. In the same period last year, it lost $200,000 (1 cent a share) on revenue of $978.5 million. (Associated Press)

IDFA NEWS

Exhibit Sales and Website Launch for Worldwide Food Expo 2005
Plans are well underway for the Western Hemisphere's largest food and dairy processing trade show next year: Worldwide Food Expo '05, October 26-29 at Chicago's McCormick Place. More than 225,000 sq. ft. of exhibit floor space has already been sold to returning exhibitors, which include more than 90 IDFA Gold Business Partners and Business Partners! IDFA is one of the founding co-sponsors of the biennial Worldwide Food Expo, which attracts 30,000 food, dairy and beverage industry professionals, including manufacturers, packers, processors and bottlers of all kinds. For 2005, the show is planning to increase the size and number of show floor pavilions so that attendees can quickly find those exhibitors that provide the products and services they need. To find out more about the latest plans for Worldwide Food Expo '05 or to sign up for exhibit space, visit the show's redesigned website: www.worldwidefood.com

To see which savvy IDFA members have already selected their exhibit booth space for Worldwide Food Expo '05, click here.

ODDS-AND-ENDS

Parmalat USA Corp. plans to cut about half of the remaining unionized workforce (from 130 to 70) at its Sunnydale Farms plant in Brooklyn by Jan. 14. More than 100 positions were cut at the Sunnydale facility earlier this year. Parmalat USA filed for bankruptcy earlier this year on the heels of the accounting scandal at its Italian parent company. (Newsday, N.Y.) ... Nearly 2,000 New Yorkers in need of a holiday pick-me-up will get a surprise delivery of milk and cookies this week in the "Milk of Human Kindness" goodwill giveaway that is sponsored by the American Dairy Association and Dairy Council Inc. (ADADC) and other New York-based organizations. Hand-painted cookies from the Lower Eastside Girls Club of New York's Sweet Things Bakeshop will be distributed throughout Manhattan with packages of cold milk donated by ESE Dairies of Woodbury, N.Y., a division of East Side Entrees. ESE donated 2,000 half-pints of the company's popular SpongeBob "Shake 'n Sip" milk to the project. The recipients include retail workers at clothing and toy stores, new moms in maternity wards, college students studying for exams, New York taxi drivers, hospital workers, Salvation Army Red Kettle volunteers and people at city shelters. (ADADC) ... Elsewhere in New York: A "raw milk coven" operates in Manhattan's Hell's Kitchen neighborhood and works to transport raw milk illegally across state lines for covert distribution. The unpasteurized, unhomogenized, unlicensed milk is popular among raw-food aficionados, who tout it as a cure for hypertension, heart disease, chronic gastritis and psoriasis. Much of the coordination is done through a secret e-mail listserv. (The New Yorker)

STOCK MARKET TICKER

As of 12/7/04, 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/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		31.50 80.16 45.80 17.85 54.38 12.46 34.51 16.23 21.26 18.85 35.48 32.91 37.56 37.51 13.46 04.07		-0.26 -0.04 -0.47 -0.24 -0.17 -0.35 -0.20 +0.23 -0.73 -0.14 +0.18 +0.21 -0.01 -0.66 -0.15 -0.02		-0.17 -0.07 +0.31 +0.05 +2.58 -0.33 +0.31 +0.05 -0.55 -0.43 +0.88 +1.32 +0.55 -0.89 -0.33 +0.07
Source: Yahoo! Finance

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