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USDA Awards NFDM in Fourth Bid Round of Casein Program The U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) recently announced that two awards will be made on USDA's offer to sell nonfat dry milk (NFDM) surplus stock to manufacturers that will convert it to casein. One contract, for 773,134 pounds, was given to Dairy Farmers of America (DFA), and the second contact, for 336,931 pounds, was awarded to the American Casein Company. The average sale price on this NFDM was $0.2879/lb. USDA bought the NFDM for at least $0.90/lb, with the exact price depending on the date of purchase, under the Dairy Price Support Program. While the awards total over 1.1 million pounds, they represent less than 0.1% of the current 1.3 billion pounds of NFDM that was in government warehouses as of October 1.The awards resulted from the fourth invitation by USDA for bids for NFDM under an original offer made in April. As reported earlier in News Update, USDA rejected the earlier three bids based on prices. (Click here to read the previous story). These awards are the first significant amount of NFDM to be taken out of government warehouses for conversions to casein. Since last fall, USDA and the industry have been looking ways to move at least some the huge NFDM stocks. The current stock of NFDM represents about 222 million pounds of casein. In the past year, a few smaller amounts were made available for companies to study the feasibility of the casein conversion program. Posted November 4, 2002
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