Los Banos Rotary Club History
White Tells Of New Competition For Milk Products

George White, manager of the Los Banos Dairymen Association, Tuesday noon told members of the local Rotary Club that the milk industry is facing constantly increasing competition from vegetable oils and other butterfat substitutes and predicted that within the next five years the local Association and other progressive plants throughout the nation will be manufacturing blended food products. This will be necessary, White said, because of the cost factor.

White recalled that some years ago butter was one of the important products manufactured in the local plant. Competition from oleomargarine has in the past 10 years cost the dairy industry approximately 50 per cent of its butter business and today, on a national basis, stores sell 8 pounds of margarine to every 10 pounds of butter.

Looking briefly into the future, White told of an experience while attending the national Dairy Conference in Chicago recently. There he saw and tasted many butter and milk substitutes, including vanilla ice cream made from skim solids and vegetable oils which he said had an excellent flavor.
"We in the industry may not like this increasing competition," he said, "but we may as well face it—and work to find new and better markets for our own products."

White has no doubt, however, as to the stability of the dairy industry, nor of its continuing importance to the Los Banos community. "We in Los Banos are so close to the industry," he said, "that we are prone to lose sight if its immensity and importance. It may well be remembered that nearly 25 percent of this country's total food supply is comprised of milk products in some form. According to the last census there were 22 million cows in the U.S. –one for every seven persons. And one of every five families in this country depend on the dairy business for a livelihood.

Plant Growth

White also briefly reviewed the organization and growth of the Los Banos Dairymen Association plant, which is owned and operated by 240 dairymen and farmers of this community and which this year will do a gross business of over three million dollars.

The organization was formed in 1924 with 35 members, each of whom was assessed on the basis of $1 per cow. Outside capital was required to build the original plant, which had 10,000 sq. feet of space under roof. In the early days the products were chiefly sweet cream and casein and marketing problems were oftimes difficult.

The plant has been continually expanded and new facilities added to give greater diversification of products and take advantage of higher prices in any particular commodity. The manufacture of butter was an earlier profitable achievement but today butter is churned only occasionally. Today sweet cream continues to be a major product, plus heavy production of basic milk powders and ice cream mix. In addition, the Borden Company operates a large fresh cheese plant on the Association premises and they purchase a large portion of the skim milk.

Today, with milk volume up over 400 per cent from the year it started, the plant, including the Borden operation, employs a total of 50 people, all of whom reside in this community. Profits from the business are distributed annually to the producers, on the basis of pounds of butterfat delivered to the plant.

Two members of the Dairymen board of directors, president August Barcellos and secretary Tony C. Lewis, also attended the Rotary luncheon as guests of program chairman Mike Dambrosio, and were introduced.

November 7, 1952

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