Originally published 2020-05-31.
In the spring of 2020, when the Covid-19 pandemic shut schools and restaurants across the United States, dairy farmers suddenly had nowhere to send their milk. Many were told to pour it away. Ben and Mary Beth Brown of Whoa Nellie Dairy, a family farm near Acme in south-western Pennsylvania, took a different route: they pasteurised and bottled as much of their own milk as they could and sold it straight to local people. The response was so strong that cars and trucks lined the country road outside their farm store, and customers turned up an hour before opening.
Their story became a small symbol of how local food networks held up when long supply chains broke down. Here is why so much milk was wasted in 2020, how the Browns adapted, and what other small farms can take from it.
Why farmers were dumping milk in 2020
Cows have to be milked every day whether or not anyone is buying. When stay-at-home orders closed schools, restaurants, cafés and hotels in March and April 2020, a large share of demand for milk, cheese and butter disappeared almost overnight. Processors that supplied those customers could not quickly repackage their output for supermarkets, which use different container sizes and labels and keep only limited cold storage.
The result was a glut of raw milk that could not be stored for long. Farmers across the country were asked to dump it. ABC News reported in April 2020 that one Idaho dairy poured away 4,100 gallons in a single day. The agricultural broadcaster Orion Samuelson of WGN Radio summed up why schools mattered so much: "The biggest buyer of fluid milk in the United States is the National School Lunch Program." With classrooms empty, those orders simply stopped.
The irony was hard to miss. At the same time that milk was going down the drain, food banks were facing record demand from families who had lost their jobs.
The Brown family and Whoa Nellie Dairy
The land Whoa Nellie Dairy farms has been in Ben Brown's family since the late 1700s. Ben and Mary Beth took over from his parents in 2016. The farm covers about 500 acres, and the Browns keep around 200 head of cattle in total, including about 65 milking cows as well as Black Angus beef cattle and young stock. In spring and summer the cows spend most of their time on pasture.
When they took over, the Browns shipped their milk to a large cooperative and were unhappy with the price they received. That pushed them to start processing some milk themselves. They bought a small 30-gallon pasteuriser, opened a farm store, and began selling cream-line milk, which is pasteurised at a lower temperature and not homogenised, so the cream rises to the top.
Dropped by their processor, and the queues that followed
That small side business turned into a lifeline in 2020. According to the trade magazine Farm Progress, the Browns learned on 4 May 2020 that the processor buying most of their milk was dropping them, leaving about 60% of their output without a buyer. Mary Beth had already watched processors ask farmers to dump milk after schools and institutions closed.
Rather than pour it away, the family worked around the clock to bottle more. Ben described pasteurising through a 24-hour shift. "I hate waste, and I don't want to dump milk," he told the Tribune-Review, adding that he still had bills to pay. They had already ordered a larger 45-gallon pasteuriser, which arrived in late April, and they placed an order for a 100-gallon vat.
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Word spread quickly through Fayette and Westmoreland counties. On one opening day reported by the Tribune-Review, at least 20 people stood in line outside the store at noon, keeping their distance, while vehicles were parked along both sides of Bear Rocks Road. One couple from nearby Scottdale, Linda and Tom Goodlin, planned to buy ten gallons for their extended family. Over the following weeks the store sold out many times, with customers driving in from Ohio and from Hershey, about four hours away.
Why direct sales worked here
Several things came together for the Browns. They already had the licence, the equipment and a shop, so they were not starting from scratch. They were close to towns with plenty of customers. And the pandemic changed how people thought about food: empty supermarket shelves made many shoppers more interested in buying locally and in knowing where their food came from.
The model is not easy, though. Bottling and selling your own milk means more equipment, more labour, health inspections, packaging, marketing and long days on top of farm work. Mary Beth told Farm Progress it put a lot of stress on both the machinery and the people. A queue on a busy afternoon also does not guarantee that customers will keep coming back once the crisis passes, so the real test is repeat demand over months and years.
The Browns hedged that risk by diversifying, adding a corn maze and other autumn activities to bring visitors to the farm.
Lessons for other small farms and for shoppers
- Have more than one buyer. Farms that sold through a single processor were the most exposed when that buyer cut back.
- Small processing can be a safety valve. Even a modest on-farm pasteuriser let the Browns save part of their milk when the wider market collapsed.
- Local customers respond to a clear story. People queued partly for fresh milk and partly to help a neighbouring farm survive.
- Shoppers can help. Buying from farm stores, farmers' markets and local dairies keeps money in the community and gives small producers a buffer against shocks.
Raw, unpasteurised milk is a separate issue. Whoa Nellie sold pasteurised milk, and health agencies advise against drinking raw milk because of the risk of food-borne illness. If you have questions about dairy and your own diet, talk to a doctor.
What 2020 taught the dairy industry
The milk-dumping crisis exposed how tightly American food supply chains were built around a few large buyers and just-in-time delivery. Federal relief money and food-box programmes eventually helped move surplus dairy to families in need, but the damage to many small farms had already been done. Stories like Whoa Nellie's stood out because they showed a practical alternative: a farm that could sell directly to the people living around it.
As Mary Beth put it to Farm Progress, farmers have to find other ways to earn a living because the big milk companies and the government cannot always be relied on.
Sources: Farm Progress: Dropped by milk processor, Whoa Nellie rises to challenge (19 May 2020); TribLive (Tribune-Review): Fayette, Westmoreland residents support dairy farmer struggling through coronavirus pandemic; ABC News: Dairy farmers dumping milk amid Covid-19 pandemic (21 April 2020).
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