HARRISBURG, Pa. -The future is not as bleak for nine of the 36 dairy farmers that received contract termination letters from Dean Foods in the beginning of March. Harrisburg Dairies has stepped up to add those nine dairy farmers to their network.
"In the beginning it just looked hopeless," recalls Alisha Risser, a Lebanon County dairy farmer, when she received her contract termination letter on March 3rd, 2018.
Risser spent the next days and weeks reaching out to as many co-operatives and buyers of fluid milk as she possibly could. She was told by everyone they'd love to buy her farm's milk, but theres just too much milk on the market right now.
"It's been a bad rough spell of bad milk prices for everybody in the dairy industry," said Risser. "What do we do? What does our future look like?"
What Risser described as a bleak future started to become a bit brighter with help from Harrisburg Dairies.
"We were contacted by Harrisburg Dairies," said Risser. "They saw an opportunity to help us out and give us an opportunity to stay in dairy farming and stay in this area. It was a God-send at a time we just didn't feel like we had any options."
Risser is one of eight other dairy farmers in the Lebanon area with terminated Dean Foods contracts Harrisburg Dairies has stepped up to help.
"They've been in business just as long or just as proud," said Alec Dewey, Harrisburg Dairies assistant general manager. "So to think of that many local business that have a chance of going out of business, it's kind of a tough pill to swallow."
With already 24 dairy farmers from Perry, Dauphin and Cumberland counties, Harrisburg Dairies didn't want to put themselves in a position where they'd struggle but they knew they had to take a risk and help these other farmers.
"It was a bit of a risk, you know more of a betmore on ourselves, this community, this area," said Dewey. "That we'd be able to get some accounts to match this added volume that we're bringing on."
Harrisburg Dairies has added two new tanker routes to pick up milk from the nine farmers in the Lebanon area. Doing this brings 60,000 gallons of extra milk to Harrisburg Dairies daily. While they could start to see a surplus of milk, especially in the summers months, they are committed to working with farmers and not terminating any contracts.
"Times are tough, so it's sort of a banding together," said Dewey. "Sticking together for our farm group and ourselves."