Milk is Milk Blog by Alex Avery
Consumer demand is frequently cited by grocers and food companies who seek to force restrictions on how their supplying dairy farmers run their operations. The most frequent restrictions are on the use of safe, tested animal health or productivity products like antibiotics used to treat mastitis or supplemental somatotropin (rbST) to help boost productivity and conserve resources.
However, the evidence suggests that the so-called consumer demand for these changes: 1. Is rarely real; 2. Doesn’t translate into increasing or even maintaining sales; and 3. Ends up harming farm economics by driving competitors to take the same steps while simultaneously damaging consumer confidence in milk and dairy foods.
Limiting the tools farmers have to safely produce more milk using fewer resources and using those restrictions as a marketing scheme creates a downward spiral in the market place, with increased production costs and reduced demand for the product. In the case of rbST, it also hurts the environment. What brain surgeons thought up the scenario that currently plagues the dairy industry? Would it surprise you to learn that it is animal rights activists who want to end all human consumption of animal products - including milk?
Let’s take a look at one example: Starbucks. In 2001 the self-proclaimed Organic Consumers Association (OCA), an organic activist front group, launched a campaign against Starbucks demanding they serve organic-only dairy products in their stores and specifically milk from cows not supplemented with rbST - commonly known as bovine growth hormone. OCA’s leader, Ronnie Cummins admitted that Starbucks was targeted because it was successful, rather than because actual Starbuck’s customers were demanding organic milk. Cummins stated, “We are targeting Starbucks because they are a high-profile market leader and because they promote themselves as socially responsible.” (Now this whole corporate social responsibility and socially responsible investing shakedown issue is another story, but you might want to consider reading a recent expose in the Economist Magazine and other reports found at the watch dog group http://www.csrwatch.com/).
What you need to know about Cummins and his cabal is that they use food scare campaigns and threats to damage organizations’ reputations as a way to achieve their extreme social, economic and political views. One of these views happens to be a strict vegetarian desire to eliminate all forms of animal agriculture. Cummins, you see, got his start working for anti-capitalist activist Jeremy Rifkin, where he helped run campaigns against beef. The Houston Chronicle reported in 1992, “In the America Rifkin envisions, beef cattle and capitalism are banished, the buffalo roam, the deer and the antelope play and Americans eat peas and corn bread in poverty but in solidarity with their Third World brothers.”
Since people actually like and demand animal products, such as dairy foods, the likes of Rifkin and Cummins have to scare people and threaten companies’ reputations in order to get them to implement their social/political agenda. As noted, their campaigns end up hurting family farmers while driving consumers away from safe and healthy foods.
But back to our Starbucks example. When Cummins’ campaign reached Starbucks executives, they jumped at the chance to engage in dialogue with people who they thought were progressive and reasonable. Reminiscent of Neville Chamberlain’s cowardly and ill-informed dealings with Nazi Germany, Starbucks failed to grasp the end-goals and tactics of this extremist group. The result? OCA immediately rejected Starbucks’ overtures to engage in a productive dialogue until the company first met all of the activist’s demands. You might think this would have been the point at which Starbucks simply told Mr. Cummins, “You know, we didn’t have any customer complaints before you guys came along and we’re pretty sure we won’t once you leave and turn your attention to somebody else… so take a hike.”
After seeing the light, Starbucks management (apparently at the direction of their board of directors) took a different route. After learning from responsible consumer and farming groups that there really wasn’t any responsible or economic way to serve only milk from cows not receiving supplemental rbST, they chose to offer the customers a choice. Starbucks would start to carry an organic milk alternative (organic producers don’t use rbST) to customers willing to pay a small premium of 40 cents - which was less than Starbuck’s actual costs. This was the first smart thing Starbucks did in dealing with the OCA extremists - they offered their customers a choice while not forcing the costs of that choice on everybody else. Starbucks’ Web site proclaimed this bold move through press statements and prominent display on their menu boards.
Did Cummins and OCA see this as a victory and move on? Of course not. They were outraged at being outwitted at their own game. They didn’t really want consumer choice; they wanted to impose their choice. Their campaign attacking Starbucks with harassment and fear tactics continues today.
As for Starbucks, a funny thing happened. Today, the organic milk option appears to be gone from most of their stores and there is no longer any mention of it on their Web sites. Ask the barista behind the coffee counter next time you’re at your neighborhood Starbucks why. We did this at numerous stores around the country and found virtually the same response: “We were throwing it all away.” In 2001 Starbucks consumer hotline operators were well armed with talking points about this decision; today they respond that they simply “don’t have any information” about that issue. It appears that very, very few customers actually were demanding this product and just about none were willing to pay for it - even when Starbucks was subsidizing the cost. Today, if you are a vegan or lactose intolerant, Starbucks will offer you an organic soy juice alternative and they eagerly promote this online.
Responsible consumer research experts will tell you that actual consumer demand and accompanying consumer purchasing is often much different than what is suggested by the polls conducted by activists or marketers who stand to profit from promoting a certain result. Activists may try to temporarily flood consumer lines and mailboxes with their complaints-du-jour; however, they rarely represent the views of a significant number of actual consumers. Forcing consumers and farmers to bear the costs and burdens of these activist campaigns is irresponsible on the part of companies - and is unethical, bordering on illegal, when those companies use false or misleading marketing to try and benefit from those restrictions. In the case of Starbucks, I wonder if their shareholders will demand an accounting of the costs they undertook to respond to the activists?
For dairy farmers and their coops who today are being asked to jump through these types of hoops, they should be asking for the real reasons why - and then asking how their interests will be protected in the future as milk production becomes less and less economical, and more consumers are scared away by the accompanying black marketing. Today it might be rbST or antibiotics - but that won’t send the activists away. What will their demands be tomorrow: oxytocin, prostaglanidin, or vaccines that protect cows against disease? Once you’ve started down the path of appeasement and concessions with extremists, it’s even less likely that they will quietly go away–just ask Neville Chamberlain or Starbucks. Milk is milk, and don’t let anybody scare you into thinking otherwise.