Milk Pouches Solve School Shortage

Milk Pouches Solve School Shortage LIVESTOCK Dairy 17 Wisconsin might be a dairy hub of the United States but that didn’t prevent a milk shortage for schools throughout Central Wisconsin The closing of two Borden-Select bottling plants Illinois and Wisconsin cut out a key supplier for schools This led to a packaging shortage of the half-pint containers that are standard in school lunches Without a way to serve milk schools can’t comply with federal lunch guidelines which leads to cuts in funding Wood Clark and Marathon County schools were forced to bring in milk from faraway states to comply with guidelines Thanks to a Marshfield bottling plant 17 school districts and close to 10 000 kids are served local milk with their lunch in a unique way—plastic pouches This milk comes from the Weber’s Farm Store bottling plant It’s one of the family’s many businesses which includes Nasonville Dairy This fifth-generation Wisconsin Century Farm has served local dairy since 1904 Family member Ken Heiman got the idea to make a change when his grandchildren started complaining about the milk situation at school The dairy has been packaging milk in half-gallon plastic pouches for almost half a century so it wasn’t difficult to size the packaging down to 8-oz pouches instead The pouches work similarly to a juice box with a straw and offer the added benefit of being cheaper and cutting garbage by 80 percent Looking forward the bottling plant is exploring the use of biodegradable plastic for the pouches though that will increase the price point per pouch Contact: FARM SHOW Followup Nasonville Dairy 10898 Hwy 10 West Marshfield Wis 54449 ph 715-676-3636; www nasonvilledairy com

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