New products increase fluid

By DON STONEMAN

The message finally got through to processors: quit marketing milk in those old square cardboard cartons. The beverage market has seen a plethora of new products hitting the store shelves this past summer, and they are boosting fluid milk sales.

Nick Owen-Price, assistant director of product promotions with Dairy Farmers of Ontario, says the new drinks have added more than one million litres per year to fluid consumption in the province.

Sales of Class 1C milk, which includes some of these products, were up seven per cent in the seven months January to July compared to the same time last year, Owen-Price says.

Sales in June and July were up one million litres, more than a 14 per cent increase, coinciding with the launch of new flavoured milk products. "There's a market there and it's expanding," he says.

The processors marketing new products are Beatrice, Dairyland and Natrel. All are marketing milk products in round plastic containers. But the products are much different from each other.

Beatrice is marketing a line of milk shakes. Natrel is selling flavoured milks. Dairyland, the newcomer trying to squeeze its way into the Ontario marketplace, is touting plain old white two per cent milk in a round, plastic re-usable container.

All of them will be competing with soft drinks to occupy the coffee cup holders of adult commuters and the hands of teenagers.

A couple of new Neilson Dairy products promised for January 1998 failed to materialize. Neilson's was unable to get the machinery needed to press out new, larger sized milk cartons that it hoped would boost fluid milk sales in single serving sizes.

But the nature of the grocery industry is such that all the products won't be seen everywhere. Dominion Stores carry products under the Beatrice label, which is owned by the Italian dairy giant Parmalat. Beatrice products also end up in IGA, as well as Field Fresh Farms and Oshawa Foods.

A fresh outlook brought in by new management in all of the major dairies is getting the credit for new ideas in the Ontario marketplace. An extensive media campaign has been used all summer to establish the Natrel name in the minds of Ontario consumers. Natrel replaces the Sealtest label, which was used by Ault Foods' fluid division.

Dairyland products are found in Wal-Mart stores, which plans to expand dairy refrigerator cases to all its stores in Canada. The American-owned department stores are popping up in communities across the province.

Wal-Mart is a concern for some dairy product marketers. When Ontario dairies were taken over by new owners almost two years ago a long grocery price war came to an end. Paul McManus, Dairy Farmers of Canada, fears that Wal-Mart might restart that war.

"They will sell it as low as they possibly can and I'm not sure that's good for us," McManus says.

There's been no price-cutting at Wal-Mart so far. Farm & Country priced milk in Wal-Mart stores late October and found its prices were comparable to fluid products sold in grocery stores. Four litres of homogenized milk sold for $4.67; skim and one per cent fat milk for $3.57.

Another discounter, the Price Club, was more competitive in its dairy pricing. Homogenized milk sold for $4.39; skim and two per cent for $2.99.

© copyright 1998 Agricultural Publishing Company Limited.


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All in the family

Lakeside's Gerry Roefs liked his daughter's 4-H calf so much he decided to use the heifer's pedigree to build his herd

By DON STONEMAN

Millionaire Victor Kiam and Lakeside Holstein breeder Gerry Roefs have something in common. In the famous Remington commercials, Kiam liked his new razor so much he bought the company that made it. Roefs liked his daughter's 4-H calf so much he bought a piece of the cow's aunt and grandmother.

There's a lot for Roefs to like about 13-year-old Nicole's 4-H calf. Homebred Roesbett Astre Rose won the spring calf class at Madison, Wis., the largest dairy show on the continent, securing Roesbett Farm's place on the Holstein breeding map.

But Astre Rose isn't sticking around. After showing at the Royal Agricultural Winter Fair, the celebrity calf, sired by Starbuck Astre, will go to Sandy Dale Farms, a prestigious show farm in Oklahoma. While he doesn't want to publish the price he got for the calf, Roefs says it was too much to resist.

But Roefs has plans to build a cow family around her. As part of the deal with Oklahoma, he is guaranteed at least five embryos from Rose's first flushing. He also bought into Rose's family. From Mitchell breeder Lowell Skinner, Roefs acquired a half share in Rose's grandam, Cranholm Rosebuck, as well as Rose's dam's full maternal sister, Agram Dixie Roselea. By breeding Roselea to Astre Starbuck, Rosebett Rose's sire, he hopes to get heifers that are of the same bloodlines as this year's Madison winner.

Like a lot of breeding cows, these are travellers. Rosebett Rose's mother is Agram Rose, a cow Roefs bought at the Agrams' dispersal sale. When Roefs bought Agram Rose in 1995, she was due to calve the following week. She was later sold, after Roefs flushed her embryos. One of those embryos was Rosebett Rose, owned in partnership with Rob Eby, who showed her in the ring at Madison.

Rose's aunt and grandmother came to Roefs by a circuitous route. Mitchell breeder Skinner bought Cranholm Rose at the Agram dispersal. At the same sale Dixie Roselea went for a high price to an American buyer and Skinner was able to buy her back later for a fraction of her sale price after mastitis rendered one quarter of her udder unsound for showing.

Roefs says the cow he bought at the Agram sale cost $2,800, the most expensive animal he has ever purchased as he built a purebred operation from his father's farm, which he took over in 1986.

Roefs is a first-generation Holstein breeder. He em-braced the purebred industry and converted his father's grade Holstein herd after spending six years as an ROP milk tester and seeing what it could do for the dairy industry. "It was something that was totally new to me," he says.

Roefs hopes purebreeding will open another avenue of income. But there's another reason Roefs got involved in the purebred industry: It gives him something to look forward to besides milking cows and spreading manure.

"I like to breed big, framey cows with lots of milk," Roefs says. "I'm not saying smaller cows can't make milk," but in the succeeding generations cows will lose their size and "become frail."

Roefs says he isn't sacrificing herd performance on the way. He put the herd on performance testing shortly before he took the grade herd over from his father, and the herd has been among the top 10 on DHI in Oxford county for the last seven years. His current rolling herd average is 11,000 kg of milk with 3.7 fat and 3.4 protein on 35 records.

Roefs has no intention of following the trend to big barns and large herds in Oxford, Ontario's foremost dairy county. "I have no desire to milk 200 cows," Roefs says. The barn, built in the 1940s, has high ceilings, tunnel ventilation and is comfortable for the cows. He predicts that he can milk in it for another 20 or 25 years.

Obviously, Roefs is a big fan of cow families. "We've fallen into the index game a time or two," he says. He prefers to look at a cow and match her to a bull that will correct her faults in her offspring.

You'll never see a high indexing bull from his herd, Roefs says. No one is going to buy a bull from a dam that is 12 years old, he points out. Breeders looking to sell an index bull are flushing virgin heifers before they are even bred, in the hope that those flushes will produce a bull by the time the heifer is producing milk. That's their way of getting ahead of the game, he says.

This has been a great year at Roesbett Farm, Roefs says. Two cows have been classified Excellent, and three heifers "went Very Good as two year olds." Daughter Nicole got a highly sought place on the Hays-Scotia Bank Oxford county 4-H team that shows at the Royal - a source of pride for Nicole, who is a township 4-H leader.

"That was the real joy of our calf this year," Gerry Roefs says. "She carries our prefix. No matter where she goes, it's something they can't take away from you."

© copyright 1998 Agricultural Publishing Company Limited.


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Flying the red and white flag

Ten years ago the Stephens family of Troy, south of Cambridge, was hard pressed to sell an Ayrshire from its purebred herd. But sales are booming now as the family benefits from a decade of widespread exposure - and celebrity - at shows like the Madison World Dairy Expo and the Royal Agricultural Winter Fair in Toronto.

"It's better than advertising in a magazine," says Marilyn Stephens. Photographs in a magazine only go so far in attracting buyers. Seeing the live animal is the best exposure, says her husband John. "We go down as ambassadors for the Canadian breed." This year the Stephens have sold cattle with their Yellow Briar prefix to farms in Indiana, Ohio and New York.

Last month Yellow Briar JS Treebet won the Junior three-year-old class at Madison and JS Panda ET was runner-up in the Senior two-year-old cow class. Yellow Briar JS Promise was second in the senior three-year-old class and also was second for best udder. The Stephens' herd placed second in the Exhibitors class.

As well, three of their animals were part of the winning "state" team, with Ken and Shirley Pace from Mountain, in eastern Ontario, also supplying three animals, and Bruce Mode from Vankleek Hill and Lorne and Irene Lantz of Wellesley each supplying one to make up the eight-animal team.

John and Marilyn feel close proximity to the border helps with sales, but showing is even better. Being ambassadors for the Canadian Ayrshire breed has become a tradition. The Stephens family has had Ayrshires since John's father started the herd in 1939. But only in the last 10 to 15 years has the herd gotten recognition.

"We aren't much for buying," says Marilyn. Most cows that hit the show ring from their farm are homebred. John says Yellow Briar has aimed at type in its breeding programs, reasoning that with proper feeding, production will follow.

The most recent report from Ontario DHI shows the herd's breed composite average is 206, 202, 214. Cows average 7,359 kg of milk, 296 of fat and 250 of protein, on 44 records.

While they use "milk bulls" from AI units for their production cows, they choose private bulls to mate with their show cows. Much of the semen for their cows comes from Bonnie Brae Farm at Vankleek Hill.

These days, John sticks to milking. Sons Jeffery and Scott now do the walking in the show ring. Jeffery does the showing and makes the decisions on buying and breeding. "I do the work," says brother Scott with a wry grin.

The Stephens milk about 45 cows, and even though they are recognized as Ayrshire breeders, black and whites have crept into their barn.

In fact, the offspring of five or six Holstein heifers bought four years ago are crowding the barn. That's because about 90 per cent of the Holstein calves have been heifers. It's a good thing that the Ayrshires are selling.

Marilyn adds that the Ayrshires have brought them luck in producing heifers as well, with 60 to 70 per cent heifer crop recently. "We think it is something in the water," Marilyn says. - Don Stoneman

© copyright 1998 Agricultural Publishing Company Limited.


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