About - Prairie Farms Dairy, Inc. (2024)

FAQs

Who owns Prairie Farms Dairy Inc.? ›

We are a farmer-owned cooperative. This means we are owned and operated by over 600 farm families who are critical members of society.

Prairie Farms Dairy has agreed to pay $10,000 — the maximum penalty the Iowa Department of Natural Resources may enforce — for exceeding wastewater discharge limits 139 times between 2018 and 2022 at its cheese manufacturing facility near Monona.

Founded in 1938, Prairie Farms Dairy is a large cooperative headquartered in Edwardsville, Ill., which is located about 25 miles northeast of St. Louis. Since August 2017, more than 100 employees have called the 30,000-square-foot facility home.

Prairie Farms was founded in 1938 making butter, condensed milk and nonfat dry milk. Prairie Farms got into the fluid milk processing business after World War II. The current company is the result of more than 100 mergers, acquisitions, and joint ventures as well as internal growth.

Hiland quickly expanded into Arkansas, Texas, Oklahoma, Kansas and Nebraska. Today, Hiland is jointly owned by two dairy cooperatives – Carlinville, Ill. -based Prairie Farms and Kansas City-based Dairy Farmers of America. This arrangement channels profits into the hands of the farmers who actually produce the milk.

As of May 2018, Prairie Farms receives milk from over 900 producers, has 5,700 employees (683 in Greater St. Louis), operates 44 manufacturing plants and over 100 distribution facilities, and has annual sales of over $3 billion.

Prairies are one of the rarest ecosystems in Washington and over 90% of highly threatened prairie land has already been lost. Once native prairie is converted to other use, such as housing or industry, it becomes inhospitable and often uninhabitable to its original residents.

Multiyear severe droughts could have an effect on soil moisture and may eventually make some parts of the region not suitable for agriculture. More recently, flooding has also been a major occurrence.

The total number of milk cows on farms in the United States shows that California holds a significant share of the total number of milk cows in the country. Unsurprisingly, California is also the leading milk producing state in the United States.

Costco does something similar with its Kirkland brand “organic” milk. It adds “refined fish oil” to the milk and boasts of high-levels of Omega-3 fats. But Costco acquires much of that milk from Aurora, a mega-dairy of 15,000 cows in Colorado.

Who makes Walmart milk? ›

Who makes Walmart's milk? Throughout the US, Walmart has many processors who supply Great Value branded milk, Dean Foods (based in Texas) being the largest. That said, Walmart has begun to do its own processing, cutting out these middlemen, and going directly to the farms.

Prairie Farms is a farmer-owned cooperative comprised of more than 700 farm families throughout the Midwest.

Prairie Farms (Animal Husbandry) is a Private company.

The process that gives the milk a longer shelf life is called ultrahigh temperature (UHT) processing or treatment, in which milk is heated to 280 degrees Fahrenheit (138 degrees Celsius) for two to four seconds, killing any bacteria in it.

Corey Scott, CEO

Corey Scott is the CEO of Midwest Dairy, the dairy promotion organization that works on behalf of dairy farm families across 10 Midwestern states to build trust and demand for dairy products. Scott is the organization's fourth CEO in its nearly 25-year history.

Frequently asked questions. Is Dairy Farmers Australian owned? We've always been Aussie made but now we're owned by Bega Cheese Limited – making us Aussie owned too!