Nearly one thousand farmers and dairy industry leaders are gathered in San Diego this week for the joint annual meeting of farmer-funded dairy promotion groups. On the agenda is a review of dairy checkoff programs and their results over the past year.

Tom Gallagher, CEO of Dairy Management Inc., says the dairy checkoff has had great success with partnerships in the pizza category and in quick serve restaurants, moving billions of additional pounds of milk. “From July of 2009 to July of 2011, pizza cheese consumption increased almost 390 million pounds,” said Gallagher. “Think about that, that’s an enormous turnaround of a category that was really starting to slide downhill.”

In addition, Gallagher says a three-year partnership with McDonald’s has helped make that chain a “dairy destination” increasing consumption by over 1.7 billion pounds. “That’s milk, cheese, yogurt and other dairy products. And obviously, when McDonald’s does something, all the other quick serve restaurants follow, so the catalytic effect is just enormous,” he said.

Gallagher told dairy farmers at the meeting this week that these kinds of partnerships demonstrate that the dairy checkoff is working to increase sales, as it should.