Last week we heard a lot about the travelers stuck in the Denver airport and their harrowing stories to get home for the holidays. But, you don’t always hear about the dairy producers and how they cope with the difficult weather.
They had to keep “digging and pushing, digging and pushing,” but those in the milk production industry dealt with the challenge of the blizzard this week.
Keith Bath, who provides feed for dairies in Colorado, heard on Friday that sometimes it was close, coming within a half hour of having to pour out milk. It meant starting early and working late for what he called the “greatest challenge since the blizzard of ’83,” Bath said. However, it was also a question of where that milk would go.
Leprino Foods had the same problem — shipping its product out. It had plenty of producers sending milk, but its freezers were full of cheese. There were no refrigerated trucks to ship it. That meant the company could not take any more milk, said plant manager Kerry Mobley.
Leprino’s 24-hour-a-day, seven-day-a-week production line was shut down for one and a half days waiting for trucks to come. That happened Friday, but even before the refrigerated trucks could drive to Leprino they had to drop off the loads they had when the blizzard hit, he said. By Friday, the situation was easing and cheese production could begin again, Mobley said.