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By Alice McFarlane

Donated milk products flow to food banks

Apr 22, 2020 | 12:46 PM

Saskatchewan Dairy producers are making a major donation to food banks around the province.

SaskMilk policy and research manager Joy Smith said an agreement was reached with processors to turn the raw milk into products.

“Once room started to open up at the processors so the milk could go in, SaskMilk approved donation of 175,000 litres of milk to be turned into products and donated to Saskatchewan Food Banks,” Smith said. “That product is going to start flowing into the food banks this week.”

The raw milk will be turned into cheese, yogurt and other milk products. Smith said most of it will be cheese because it’s easy to handle.

“It’s a great product for being able to store and for them to distribute and also to get to rural food banks in the province as well. It’s going to result in over 38,000 pounds of products,” she said.

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Smith said the distribution of the donated items will happen over a period of time.

The closure of restaurants from COVID-19 caused reduced demand for dairy items.

Producers were forced to dump a small percentage of milk for about a week and a half across Western Canada as they adjusted to lower consumption.

There was a lot of work behind the scenes trying to find a place for the excess milk. Smith said the markets are changing all the time because of COVID-19.

“Processors and provincial milk boards were working hard to find a place for the milk. Now we’ve settled into a new environment where we don’t need to be disposing. We’re hopeful that will continue,” Smith said.

Saskatchewan Dairy Farmers donated the milk, Agrifood Transport provided free trucking of the milk from the farm to the processor and Saputo contributed the processing and packaging.

“It was a great team effort by the industry to get that product to the food banks,” she said.

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alice.mcfarlane@jpbg.ca

On Twitter: @AliceMcF