Episode 48 - How Lactose-Free Milk in Schools Increased Dairy Consumption

What happens when schools offer students a lactose-free milk option? In this episode of Your Dairy Checkoff Podcast, Theresa Reps sits down with Scott Higgins for a Regional Rundown Segment to discuss a groundbreaking pilot program in Cincinnati Public Schools that is helping more students choose milk at mealtime.

The pilot introduced shelf-stable lactose-free white and chocolate milk to students and delivered impressive results including increased milk consumption, higher meal participation and strong student response, especially for chocolate milk.

Scott shares how the program came to life through trusted partnerships with school nutrition leaders, the role dairy checkoff played in identifying unmet demand and how the results are creating new opportunities for processors and school districts across the country.

Tune in to hear how innovation, collaboration and consumer insights are helping dairy meet students where they are while growing demand for milk in schools.

Host & Guest 

• Host: Theresa Reps, Director of Farmer Outreach, Dairy Management Inc.
• Guest: Scott Higgins, President & CEO, American Dairy Association Mideast

Transcript (AI-Generated, please ignore typos) 

Your Dairy Checkoff Podcast 00:00

welcome to your Dairy Checkoff podcast from Dairy Management Inc, where dairy checkoff leaders and farmers share real stories, strategies, and insights that grow sales and build trust for US dairy. Let's get started.

Theresa Reps 00:20

Hello, everyone, and welcome to the Regional Rundown, a segment of the Your Dairy Check Off podcast, where we speak to local, state, and regional organizations about the work that they are doing on behalf of dairy farmers. On today's episode, we're lucky to be joined by Scott Higgins, the CEO and President of American Dairy Association Mid East, which represents farmers in Ohio and West Virginia. We're here to talk today about a pilot program that was launched by American Dairy Association Mid East with lactose-free milk in schools. So, welcome, Scott. We're so excited to have you and talk about one of our favorite topics, school milk. Why don't you take a moment, introduce yourself, and talk a little bit about your role with American Dairy Association Mideast. Well, certainly. 

Scott Higgins 01:06

Well, thank you for having me on. I really appreciate the opportunity to enlighten dairy farmers about their investment and what programming we are accomplishing to see them accomplish their goals of moving more milk, increasing demand, and in sales for dairy food, so it's really a pleasure to be on the call today. I am Scott Higgins, CEO for the American Dairy Association Mideast. I actually just completed my 41st year with the association, started right out of college in 1984 working for dairy farmers, and they had enough confidence in me in 1986 to name me CEO, so I've been doing this all those years, and I'm just very proud of the opportunity, and humbled to have the chance to work for dairy farmers. I love that 41 years of service, that's amazing. Congratulations. Today, we're excited to talk a little bit more about your pilot program. It was a lactose free milk pilot program, I believe that was done in Cincinnati. Can you share a little bit more about how that program started and what that program entails? Absolutely, it's very exciting just to share this. First of all, I think it's really important for the dairy farmers to realize how their check-off program has always had an eye on the future, a vision for what opportunities exist, and I remember 41 years ago when I first started looking at the marketplace and identifying what I would consider unmet demand, just looking out over the horizon and saying, what are what are some of the indicators that we can sense and see that if we were to create a product or introduce a product in a new marketplace, could we achieve sales, and so roll forward now, and use this as one experience that we are now looking at, and that is, if you've watched over time, there have been more and more incidences of lactose intolerance that have been evolving in our society, and at the retail level, over a 30% increase in lactose-free milk sales were occurring in the year of 20 2019 versus previous years, so looking at that and then looking at our school districts and thinking, what are the implications there. We noticed that school districts, that some of the school districts, which have a high proliferation, a high attendance of African American children, other Hispanics who, other other children who may be lactose intolerant, or may have tendencies to not consume dairy because of their fear for lactose intolerance. We thought this would be a great opportunity to test and see if children had access to lactose-free milk, would they consume it now? There are a lot of challenges you have to overcome, and one of those challenges was the volume may not be significant enough for a regular milk in eight ounce packaging to be able to stand the test of time and be available for a period of time that that the sale could occur, so when shelf stable milk became a, an option for us, we actually have a new plant. It's based out of in West Virginia. They are working with diversified foods, and they were, they are packaging 1% chocolate and 1% white lactose free shelf stable milk. So the idea came was brought to us by DMI and by Diversified Foods. So we went to Columbia to Cincinnati Public Schools, where we have a 21 year plus relationship with Jessica Shelley, the director of school program food services there, and we brainstormed with them about could we test this opportunity, and she was willing to do so. So, just right out of the gate, going to a school district that has 80% of the population is African American, recognizing the number of students that are either asking for a waiver from drinking milk, not having to be. Not being required to drink milk in order to get the school meal through the federal feeding program, and just looking at all those, all those issues, and we went to her, and she's like, "You know what, let's take a look at this. So we started the project in this, in over a 15 week period in the fall of 2023 and wrapped up in at the end of December, and so we began the process of testing and seeing whether or not if we introduced lactose-free milk to children in a control group and also in the test pilot group would we see a difference, and oh my goodness, we have been amazed at how many students have responded so positively to the opportunity, and I'd be happy to get into some of the details on that.

Theresa Reps 05:44

That's great. I would love for you to dive into a little bit more. I know you said in 2023 is when you did this pilot. So, what results have you seen from the pilot program? You saw the consumption increase. Do you have some numbers you can share with us,

Scott Higgins 06:01

be happy to share those numbers, and so let's go back and just take a look at what did we offer students. One of the things that was absolutely essential to this study when we went into it was to make sure that the teachers, the administrators, the school food service personnel, all the workers, everybody in the school needed to know what was going on, and then informing parents of the opportunity for this product being introduced. You know, a lot of times you'll, you'll hear people when something's mentioned, like aseptic milk, they don't think it's real milk. We had to make sure that we sent home material information and backpack stuffers that let the parents know your child's going to have an opportunity to consume a shelf stable real milk that is lactose free, and then a couple things that were lifted. One of the, one of the lifts that was a was accomplished was through the test, because it is milk, they did not have to have a letter from their parents requesting access to it because it's milk and because it's a lactose free option, so a number of the students that were that had a letter had options to drink a soya beverage, that's what their choice was, and so when we went into the schools and made that recognition available, we were amazed at how many students immediately responded to it. So now let's cut to the chase. At the end of the study, we were so amazed to see what we were able to accomplish. First of all, just in the just in the year long results, we had a 14% increase in overall milk consumption, a 4% increase in meal participation, just in the schools that we tested, then the school district was so impressed with the numbers, they were so impressed with the number of children that chose to drink lactose-free milk, that they decided to make it to expand it and add more school buildings to it by the end of the school year, which was amazing. The test was completed in December. The school district director, Jessica Shelley, was so impressed with the numbers. She said, "We're going to continue to offer this in all of our high schools for the rest of the year. At the end of the year, we had increased our overall consumption by an overall volume, 29% of the volume at schools was lactose free milk. The amount of additional milk sales, 25% of the students were choosing lactose free milk over regular milk, but the bottom line was we moved more product. Overall sales increased, and so that tells us we're on the right track, when you can get a 20% increase in over your from your pilot schools versus your control schools, you recognized immediately there's a, there's something here that we need to continue to pay attention to, so the end of the game is this, we proved to the school district that offering a shelf stable lactose free meal milk in this case increased the opportunity for kids to take access and get the nutrition that they need from milk. Didn't have to have a waiver, didn't have to have an alternative product, simply drink lactose free milk. It also was something that was very important to us, as that's what they were drinking at home. So it's nice that the child has access to the product that they're used to drinking at home, and now the school district was offering it, and so it's a win-win for all. So, with these results, what we're doing now is we've reached out to the processing community and made them aware of the opportunity in front of them, and we've also now, as a sales team, my staff around the Ohio and West Virginia markets are going into school districts and sharing the research results with them, and getting schools excited about the opportunity. Now, every school district's a bit different, you know, the democracy, the demographics of each district may be different, so opportunities may be greater in some districts than others. Yes, so the information being presented to the school district school food service directors really enlightens them to the opportunity, and then our processors are looking at the results and saying perhaps we should be offering a lactose free regular milk as well. If there's that much of an increase, maybe the cost of aseptic may be more than a school district to handle, but Columbus, but Cincinnati Public Schools decided that the meal participation increased enough to offset the cost, and so that was another key finding for us. So, you know, I could obviously get into a whole lot more details than this, but I think it's really compelling just to simply say think of this. In this particular study, 35,000 children every day had access to milk. We were able to lift our consumption among those children by 20 points. So, of those children that weren't consuming, they're not consuming it, they're getting the nutrition that they're used to getting at home. They weren't available, it wasn't available to them at school, and that's a win. So, we're excited about what the future holds. We think there are going to be more processors that are going to step up and transform with the gallon sales, if you will, the gallon and a half gallon lactose free. They're going to start offering 80 ounce containers of lactose free milk for schools, and then for school districts who may want to offer it, but maybe don't have enough volume to justify a regular milk or fresh milk, as we call it. There could be an aseptic version, a shelf-stable version for them, and then they can handle it, keep it. It stays longer. All they have to do is chill it down and continue to serve it when the child has access with has access to it. And so, just tremendous opportunity. So, I'll just come back to say this. We started out looking at a need, we identified an opportunity, and quite honestly, we identified and recognized an unmet demand. There's a need there. Children want access to the chocolate milk, the 1% chocolate milk that's lactose free. We provided it, they consumed it. Excitement around the meal increased, meal participation increased, and milk sales increased. Those are the kind of results our dairy farmers are looking for through a check-off led initiative. 

Theresa Reps 12:10

That's amazing. I want to clarify one thing, because I'm not in the school milk world all the time. So, when you say meal participation, what does that mean? Like, how is that calculated in some school districts? 

Scott Higgins 12:24

They offer a planned meal, or they offer a la carte, so there may be options for the child to pick from, or the child can just bring their lunch from home, and so in that school district they saw an increase of when it was all said and done, a 4% increase in the meal participation in the pilot schools alone, they saw a meal participation increase of 9% and then, of course, you'd narrow it all out and vet it all out, but the school meal participation was driven because they now had option that that chocolate milk, that lactose-free chocolate milk, was on the menu, was on the tray.

Theresa Reps 13:07

And was it just chocolate milk, or did you also.. I think you mentioned before there was a white milk option as well. We did offer a 1% white milk, and chocolate milk was the driver, though.

Scott Higgins 13:20

Children love taste, and that was one of the things that we tested before we ever started this project, was we took the two that we took the 1% white and the 1% chocolate, and we had children have an opportunity to taste it. 80% of the kids said they love the taste of it, and the other thing that's really unique about this, when you think about it, you know, we typically see milk served in schools, and in a gable top, a little eight ounce gable top. These were in a brick pack. These were in an aseptic brick pack, and some might look at that and think that that's not milk, because they're used to drinking that the juices in the juice box, right? So this is packaged in a similar container. So there was a familiar format that the child had access to, and so it was a friendly package, and the kids were used to it. They grew up on juice boxes at home, so they knew exactly what they were doing, and when they realized that was real chocolate milk in there, they got excited about it.

Theresa Reps 14:14

I know my kids, if given the choice, will choose chocolate almost every single time, so it doesn't surprise me that that chocolate wins out with with students in schools, so since the pilot program has started, you talked a little bit about some of the continuation, but can you expand more about what has happened since this pilot program? 

Scott Higgins 14:35

Well, the I would say that the most important thing was that Jessica Shelley and the Cincinnati public schools continue 2024 2025 school year. They're offering shelf stable chocolate 1% milk throughout their entire school system, and so while we saw the sales and the sales achievements and recognized how many more kids were drinking milk, she's. Experiencing that year long, since then she also eliminated her a la carte meal program because the meal participation increased so much that they were satisfied that that was meeting the need, and so that's another factor that came into play. So since then we've seen her, we've witnessed her sharing at various school nutrition association state and national events exposing her peers to the research that we accomplished together with her, and she has spoken incredibly highly of it. So now you've got an industry that did the work, tested and proved the results, you've got a spokesperson now from the school district themselves telling the story, and now the industry is looking at those opportunities and assessing what's the market opportunity for us in our region or in the entire nation, and so I think it's really pivotal to be able to have check-off dollars to prove to the marketplace there's an opportunity to grow sales, there's an opportunity to meet unmet demand, and now it's a matter of getting the processing community to make it financially feasible, and to work it, and to produce it, and make it available to our school districts. So that's where we are right now. More to come. 

Theresa Reps 16:15

I want to go back on one of the things that you mentioned when we started this pilot program came about because you had a strong relationship with the school. Can you talk a little bit more, how you've developed that relationship? 

Scott Higgins 16:30

Yeah, we've worked with school districts for years in projects like yogurt parfas and smoothies, and we've had a relationship with Cincinnati Public schools for as long as I've been here, but specifically with Jessica Shelley, and she's been very receptive to us bringing in ideas and offering up programs that increased access to dairy foods, whether it was on the breakfast breakfast carts in the morning or in some cases in some school buildings, breakfast in the classroom, where we provided bags, cooler bags, so they could put the milk in the cooler bag, take it right to the classroom, and serve children. So Jessica recognized us as a solution. We are always coming up with new ideas, using check-off dollars, and our staff with with with tremendous skills to go into the schools and coach them, work with them, overcome their challenges and barriers to increase access to, and make the school experience even better. You know, at the end of the day, one of the things that the school food service and school administrators tell us is children who have access to breakfast perform better throughout the school day, keeps them out of the nurses station, keeps them eager and anxious to learn. When your tummy is not growling, you think better, you're more responsive, you can interact better. And our relationship for the last 1520 years has been based on working with the school district, looking at the opportunities, overcoming challenges and the barriers that they were presented, and then equipping them with tools to overcome those. So we earned that relationship. It's not just about having a relationship, about earning their trust. And so I'm very proud of my team. I've got a tremendous school marketing team, and they work very, very diligently and very closely with school districts to seek opportunities and to build relationships to do that. Another thing that we're doing right now is recipe development. You know, it's really quite clever when you can work with the desire nowadays is to make from scratch and to serve it, and so it's more naturally assembled in the in the cafeteria or even in the central kitchens before they're distributed to the school districts. We're working with them to make sure that dairy products are not just a not just milk and cheese, but as an ingredient in their meals, and so having yogurt, yogurt parfas being built into that, so we've built trust with the school district, and they recognize that, and I believe that was one of the reasons Jessica was so willing to try this, is she's had such a great experience in working with my team and with us as a check-off program that she was willing to take a chance and see if these results could be achieved, and she has been nothing but pleased. 

Theresa Reps 19:08

We'll be really excited to see what your team comes up with next, Scott. We really appreciate you joining us today on the Your Dairy Check Off podcast. We will see you next time. 

Scott Higgins 19:18

Thank you for having me.

Your Dairy Checkoff Podcast 19:22

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