ELLSWORTH—Patrons of the Ellsworth Cooperative Creamery received a letter dated April 2nd from Paul Bauer, CEO of the cooperative telling them of the lost market for their milk and asking them to cut back on milk production. This is due to the COVID-19 virus crisis.
The letter states that the “board is urging all patrons to reduce the amount of milk being shipped by seven percent.” The board suggested three ways to reduce the milk shipment including culling cows, drying cows early or reducing the feed ration.
In Bauer’s letter, he told patrons of a couple of examples of orders cancelled by the creamery’s customers including the cancellation of 15 loads this month alone. Bauer, commented; “to counter this, we are still processing milk into cheese as best we can for long term storage.” He continued, “This week we had one Company break their written contract to take eight loads of milk per day causing a back log at the cooperative’s plants. We may need to dump milk if our milk supply is not reduced,” Bauer’s letter suggested to his patrons.
Board Offers To Buy Patrons Equity
The cooperative’s board of directors has approved a program to encourage members to quit dairy farming by paying to the members their equity in the cooperative for the years 2010 to 2019 with several provisions being met by the patron, including the following:
Members must not sell their cows to an existing member of the cooperative and they must provide proof of where the cows went to the board of directors and cows must be sold by April 15th, 2020.
Other criteria includes that the program is only for the first 100,000 pounds of milk per day of member milk and the payout will be one hundred percent of the equity through 2019. Members will not be allowed to ship back to the cooperative without board approval.
The Ellsworth Cooperative Creamery has 295 patrons and receives about two million pounds of milk daily at its three facilities.
