MilkPEP Goes the Distance
Since joining the Milk Processor Education Program (MilkPEP) as chief executive officer in March 2009, I have had the opportunity to meet with and listen to the views of many people in the dairy industry, particularly those involved with fluid milk. During these conversations, two themes have emerged that we are focusing our efforts against.
Since joining the Milk Processor Education Program (MilkPEP) as chief executive officer in March 2009, I have had the opportunity to meet with and listen to the views of many people in the dairy industry, particularly those involved with fluid milk. During these conversations, two themes have emerged that we are focusing our efforts against.
First is the realization that MilkPEP is in the unique position of having the resources to further establish itself as the thought leader of the fluid milk industry in the United States. By this I mean that MilkPEP can lead the efforts to conduct research that is essential to the growth of the fluid milk business. MilkPEP also can make the results of such research available to every processor, providing them with the ability to capitalize on these resources for their own business planning.
Thus with the encouragement and support of MilkPEP’s board of directors, we have almost doubled the amount that we spend against research in 2010. In my view, the most exciting additional work that we are doing is to increase the scope of our consumption tracking.
By way of explanation, we buy data from Chicago-based SymphonyIRI that enables us to see who purchases milk versus our competition. However, this is very different from truly understanding consumption habits, such as knowing who consumes milk and when and how milk is consumed. The growth of competitors combined with the change in lifestyles and habits over time has transformed the marketing environment. Therefore, if we do not have this knowledge, it makes our task of increasing milk consumption very hard indeed.
In addition to commissioning more research, we are redoubling our efforts to make the results of existing research accessible to the milk processors. We have performed a thorough audit of all of the research ever conducted by MilkPEP and are developing a searchable database that will be made available to every processor member. For example, if you are interested in attitudes of tweens and teens toward drinking milk, you can quickly search for applicable research that has been conducted on this topic.
The second theme has been that processors perceive MilkPEP’s activities as being more opportunistic and short term in nature versus establishing a long-term strategic platform. This will now change as we embark on the development of a Long Range Plan (LRP) for fluid milk, which will benefit the entire industry, not just MilkPEP.
The objectives of the LRP are to identify the most significant factors that are contributing to the decline in our per capita milk consumption and then determine the required actions to turn around this decline. We expect that some of the actions will involve changing consumer behaviors and others will require players in the milk industry to rethink current business strategies.
Albert Einstein famously defined insanity as, “doing the same thing over and over and expecting different results.” If we are to increase the consumption of fluid milk in the United States, we should be prepared to take different actions. The roadmap to identify these different possible actions will be the outcome of our LRP.
The milk industry is experiencing exciting and challenging times. It is MilkPEP’s goal to firmly establish a leadership role by being a go-to resource for processors, as well as looking beyond immediate trends and data to identify long-term growth opportunities. We will continue to do this through new research, which will result in exciting new strategic platforms to drive growth for dairy processors nationwide.
Since joining the Milk Processor Education Program (MilkPEP) as chief executive officer in March 2009, I have had the opportunity to meet with and listen to the views of many people in the dairy industry, particularly those involved with fluid milk. During these conversations, two themes have emerged that we are focusing our efforts against.
First is the realization that MilkPEP is in the unique position of having the resources to further establish itself as the thought leader of the fluid milk industry in the United States. By this I mean that MilkPEP can lead the efforts to conduct research that is essential to the growth of the fluid milk business. MilkPEP also can make the results of such research available to every processor, providing them with the ability to capitalize on these resources for their own business planning.
Thus with the encouragement and support of MilkPEP’s board of directors, we have almost doubled the amount that we spend against research in 2010. In my view, the most exciting additional work that we are doing is to increase the scope of our consumption tracking.
By way of explanation, we buy data from Chicago-based SymphonyIRI that enables us to see who purchases milk versus our competition. However, this is very different from truly understanding consumption habits, such as knowing who consumes milk and when and how milk is consumed. The growth of competitors combined with the change in lifestyles and habits over time has transformed the marketing environment. Therefore, if we do not have this knowledge, it makes our task of increasing milk consumption very hard indeed.
In addition to commissioning more research, we are redoubling our efforts to make the results of existing research accessible to the milk processors. We have performed a thorough audit of all of the research ever conducted by MilkPEP and are developing a searchable database that will be made available to every processor member. For example, if you are interested in attitudes of tweens and teens toward drinking milk, you can quickly search for applicable research that has been conducted on this topic.
The second theme has been that processors perceive MilkPEP’s activities as being more opportunistic and short term in nature versus establishing a long-term strategic platform. This will now change as we embark on the development of a Long Range Plan (LRP) for fluid milk, which will benefit the entire industry, not just MilkPEP.
The objectives of the LRP are to identify the most significant factors that are contributing to the decline in our per capita milk consumption and then determine the required actions to turn around this decline. We expect that some of the actions will involve changing consumer behaviors and others will require players in the milk industry to rethink current business strategies.
Albert Einstein famously defined insanity as, “doing the same thing over and over and expecting different results.” If we are to increase the consumption of fluid milk in the United States, we should be prepared to take different actions. The roadmap to identify these different possible actions will be the outcome of our LRP.
The milk industry is experiencing exciting and challenging times. It is MilkPEP’s goal to firmly establish a leadership role by being a go-to resource for processors, as well as looking beyond immediate trends and data to identify long-term growth opportunities. We will continue to do this through new research, which will result in exciting new strategic platforms to drive growth for dairy processors nationwide.
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