Dairy farmer leaders representing six northeastern states voted last week to approve the 2017 budget and program proposals for New England Dairy Promotion Board (NEDPB) and New England Dairy & Food Council(NEDFC). The action to approve the $5.5 million budget came at the annual meeting of the two companies that develop and carry out promotion, education and research programs in New England on behalf of dairy farmers. Dairy farmers also heard from Carolyn Gibbs, CFO and Executive Vice President of Finance at Dairy Management Inc. (DMI) about the role dairy promotion organizations played in partnerships with McDonald’s and Domino’s. McDonald’s All Day Breakfast continues to drive incremental dairy sales as butter, cheese and milk in coffee are prominent ingredients on the breakfast menu, and breakfast foods are now part of 47% of total food orders. In September of 2015, McDonald’s also successfully transitioned from liquid margarine to butter in its 14,000+ U.S. restaurants. DMI will also partner with Yum! Brands, the parent company of Kentucky Fried Chicken, Pizza Hut and Taco Bell, to bring U.S. dairy into international markets. Through the new initiative, DMI will work with KFC and Pizza Hut on pilot programs that focused on increased cheese and butter use in the Asian Pacific, Latin American and Caribbean markets. “Cheese continues to drive sales with 5.5 billion pounds of incremental milk sold over the last 52 weeks,” said Gibbs. “Most of this is the result of the product development work with pizza chains like Domino’s and quick serve restaurants McDonald’s and Taco Bell.”