Happy Meals are also a bit healthier meals, thanks to the partnership between the National Dairy Checkoff and McDonald’s. The restaurant giant is now offering fat-free chocolate milk as one of their options for their new kids Happy Meals in all of its 14,000 locations nationwide. John Larson, Florida Dairy Farmer is glad to see the checkoff dollars spent this way. “With our limited dollars that we have to spend, partnering with major partners like McDonald’s would be a very big advantage for dairy farmers to let them carry the ball in so many aspects with our good product that we can offer the public.”

Dairy checkoff employees are right on-site at McDonald’s headquarters and helped develop the fat-free chocolate milk option, which has about 20 percent fewer calories and 10 percent less sugar than McDonald’s 1 percent chocolate milk. “The simple fact that we have some employees there working at McDonald’s headquarters and working in the menu development using dairy products is very exciting,” Larson says.

McDonald’s also recently promoted its menu with 40 items under 400 calories, many of those items including dairy.