Who are Producer-Handlers of Milk?  

Producer-handlers are dairy farmers who process milk from their own cows in their own plants and market their packaged fluid milk and other dairy products themselves.

Producer-handlers may sell products directly to consumers through their own stores, directly to consumers on home-delivery routes, or to wholesale customers such as Costco, independent grocers, as well as schools or institutions.

Producer-handlers who meet this definition are currently exempt from the pricing and pooling provisions of the federal milk marketing orders - which set minimum prices and control the flow of milk within their order areas. Because producer-handlers produce all of their own milk supply and do not purchase milk from other farmers, they are exempt from these pricing and pooling provisions. Producer-handlers have proven their ability to produce and market their fluid milk at competitive prices and better serve their customers because of their quality products and innovative market practices.

The producer handler segment of the industry consists of streamlined, vertically integrated operations that are thriving and setting the pace for competition in today's dairy marketplace. Rapid and progressive technological and marketplace changes in the dairy industry have provided producer-handler operations opportunities to become more efficient, flexible and competitive than many traditional dairy operations. The potential of facing new marketing and operational efficiencies is controversial to traditional processors, producers and their organizations- much in the same way that Wal-Mart and Sam's Club have been controversial challengers to traditional milk processors and grocery chains.

Today's milk marketplace is characterized by consumers who, in addition to being driven by price, have different wants, desires and needs for milk and milk products. Consumers are highly diverse and range from poor migrant laborers who must shop for the lowest cost sources of milk to an increasingly affluent segment that pay to have milk and its products delivered to their homes. These vastly different market segments have created opportunities for P-H dairy operators to successfully serve niche markets with their products and provide consumers with affordable, high quality dairy products.

"It would be a serious mistake to nip such fledgling operations in the bud by government regulation," according to Dr. Ronald Knutson of Texas A&M University .