Charlotte's Blog

Last week, I attended the International Dairy Foods Association (IDFA) conference in Boca Raton, Fla. I live in Maine so you might assume that I was overjoyed to be in the sunshine state while back-to-back blizzards crippled the frozen northeast.

But truth be told, I love snow. The bigger the storm, the higher the snowbanks, the more I am transported back to the place I grew up—a farm in Pittston, Maine. During the snowstorms of the early 1980s, my brother, sister and I would don our Moon Boots and play “king of the mountain” atop the monstrous snowbanks created when my father plowed our quarter-mile long driveway. The goal of the game was to stay on the top of the snow bank alone, by pushing the others down as they tried to occupy your space.

It’s a game not unlike what the industrial dairy industry is playing right now. Feeling “under attack” because consumers are asking questions about the use of antibiotics and growth hormones on factory farm dairies, Big Ag has launched a Big Campaign in the hope of reclaiming its spot at the top.

And the industrial dairy industry has a secret weapon: cowbells.