America's biggest milk company files for bankruptcy (don't just blame Millennials)
Best before 11/12/2019... Milk legend Dean Foods lost its CFO and CEO in the last 6 months. The stock's fallen from $22 in 2016 to just 80 cents. And yesterday it filed for bankruptcy because it can't afford to pay worker pension plans. Depending on a judge's decision, Dean could reemerge from bankruptcy and keep operating. But it's got larger lactose-induced problems.
Got customers?... Barely. Dean's 58 manufacturing facilities and utter-full employees pump out the dairy for Friendly's ice cream, TruMoo chocolate milk, and other local cartons. But non-dairy has hit America's biggest milk company hard, dropping Dean's sales by 38% over the last decade.
- Almond, oat, soy, cashew, hemp, coconut, quinoa, rice, pea. They've all got their own milks now (smaller environmental impact, potentially healthier).
- Plant-based milk sales rose 6% in the last year while dairy milks dropped 3%.
- Now plant-based milk soaks up 13% of the entire milk category.
Don't just blame Millennials... (can't condemn us for everything). While every headline covers how oatmilk latte love slurped up Dean Foods' sales, the company also recently lost a major customer: Walmart. Last year, Walmart started processing its own milk instead of relying on Dean's brands. That's a huge loss for Dean that gets less attention than plant-based-palooza.