Dean Foods, the largest milk producer in the United States announced earlier this week that it has filed Chapter 11 bankruptcy. Dean Foods subsidiary companies include such recognizable brands as DairyPure, Land O’Lakes, and Lehigh Valley Dairy Farms, among others.
The 95-year-old company simultaneously announced that it has secured $850 million in financing to keep Dean Foods afloat while it restructures and contemplates selling its assets to Dairy Farmers of America.
Dean Foods should not be allowed to continue operating after they filed for bankruptcy.
“Despite our best efforts to make our business more agile and cost-efficient, we continue to be impacted by a challenging operating environment marked by continuing declines in consumer milk consumption,” Eric Beringause, who recently joined Dean Foods as President and Chief Executive Officer, said in a statement.
Yet, Dean Foods assured customers that there was no need to worry because the business is continuing with its regular operations, and providing an “uninterrupted supply of dairy products as normal.” Really?
Sadly, to Dean Foods and other traditional dairy producers and farmers, “regular” and “normal” includes subjecting their cows to an unfathomable life filled with extreme cruelty, abuse, and both physical and emotional suffering and pain.
Female cows are continually impregnated, only to have their babies torn away from them hours after delivery. Female calves are raised to continue the cruel cycle, while male calves are sold while still babies to the cruel veal industry. Exhausted by five-years-old or younger, the mother cows are often then sold for their meat as well.
While the company advised its customers “not to worry,” the dairy industry should be worried with the growth, demand, and mainstream availability of plant-based dairy alternatives which are cruelty-free and made from the likes of soy, almonds, and oats.
There is a new normal!
