The future of dairy lies in exports

Right now, exports account for 15 percent of the nation’s dairy sales. Vilsack and Gallagher said they are working on a plan to increase that to 20 percent within three to five years. “The reality is, we can’t stay at 14-15 percent. We have to expand exports … To do that, Tom Gallagher mentioned the word trust and it’s incredibly important we go out and establish trust not with our own consumers, but with consumers around the world. If they trust us, they will try our products. If they try our products, they will absolutely love them. If they love them, they will continue to consume them,” Vilsack said.In order to make the 5 percent jump, it will require additional sales of 200,000 metric tons more of cheese and 450,000 metric tons more of dairy ingredients. Mexico will be a target country. Although U.S. products are already No. 1 in their market, accounting for 75 percent of all their dairy imports, Vilsack said he would like to see that number increase.