Posted on 01/08/2020 10:01:32 AM PST by Red Badger
Borden is the second giant U.S. dairy company to seek bankruptcy protection as raw milk prices and sales of milk alternatives continue to soar.
Borden, whose mascot, Elsie the Cow, has smiled out at consumers from milk, cheese and butter cartons for more than 80 years, has filed for bankruptcy protection, becoming the second major U.S. dairy company to seek help as milk prices soar and more Americans turn to milk alternatives.
Borden Dairy Co., which is based in Dallas, reported losses of $42.4 million in 2019. In a filing Sunday in U.S. Bankruptcy Court in Delaware, it listed debts between $100 million and $500 million to more than 5,000 creditors.
The company filed under Chapter 11 of the bankruptcy code, allowing it to try to reorganize its debts and remain in business. That's less drastic than filing under Chapter 7, which would have required it to sell off its assets to pay its creditors and potentially go out of business.
Its largest creditors are two of its pension funds, which together are owed more than $33 million, Borden said.
Dean Foods, the country's biggest milk producer, similarly filed for Chapter 11 protection in November. Borden and Dean products made up a little more than one-eighth of all U.S. milk sales last year, according to industry data.
Unlike Dean, which said it intended to sell itself, Borden said it would seek to reorganize its finances to stay in business.
"Borden Dairy is a heritage American brand that has been in business since 1857," Chief Executive Tony Sarsam said in a statement. "We have a very tenured workforce of 3,300 people who live and breathe our values of teamwork and creative problem solving, and I am extremely confident and optimistic about our continued success in the future."
But the U.S. dairy industry has been churned by a double-whammy of economic and lifestyle factors.
Borden said that the price of raw milk has risen 27 percent in the past year and that it's expected to keep rising, partly because more than 2,700 dairy farms have gone out of business since mid-2018.
At the same time, dairy sales have fallen "in conjunction with the rise of oat, nut, soy, and other alternative 'milk' products," which are eating away at both sales of whole milk and its shelf space in stores, Jason Monaco, Borden's chief financial officer, said in an affidavit attached to the bankruptcy filing.
"While milk remains a household item in the United States, people are simply drinking less of it," said Monaco, who cited Agriculture Department data reporting that total U.S. consumption of dairy milk products has fallen by about 6 percent since 2015.
Borden has been known to generations of Americans since it introduced Elsie the Cow on its labels in 1936 — many of them on cartons of milk distributed with public school lunches.
Borden claimed that by the 1940s, research showed that more people recognized Elsie than they did the president.
Three other cows that were introduced in the same ad campaign — Mrs. Blossom, Bessie and Clara — didn't survive the test of time.
I noticed the Chunky candy has been getting smaller and smaller over the last few years. Now, I can’t even find it in the Dollar Stores. I know it’s probably available online, but I shouldn’t be eating so much candy anyway.
It’s probably for the best that I can’t get any in stores for now.
But..Fake news we always have with us!.
Elsie bites the dust!
Elsie’s been turned into fajitas!
It should be square, and fat. I liked the one with Raisins. They also took VERY well to peanut butter being spread on top. These days, when my wife isn’t looking, I sneak in a Payday or Hershey’s Gold. I would have a Reese’s Nutrageous (NOT Outrageous, a different product) if I could find it in single serve packages.
What about Elmer? Is he sticking around?...................
Borden’s main problem is their milk is always about $1.00 more than the store brands and no better.
Leni
Elmer has been put into a "senior care home" and has been officially replaced by Gorilla glue.
>50’s ad for Borden’s milk. What a different world...<
I remember as a kid in the 60’s, early 70’s the Borden milk trucks still made the rounds in neighborhoods making home deliveries. You could buy ice cream bars or a pint of chocolate milk from the driver. He was like the ice cream truck coming around, without the stupid music.
Most nut milk is very blah including almond milk... but if you were raised on bluejohn [skim milk] , almond milk tastes fantastic, as does everything other than bluejohn.
If they still delivered they’d be doing better... suddenly everyone wants stuff delivered since so many kids now did not learn how to drive.
As that is the cream of humor on FR today I won't churn you up by trying to milk the gag for more jokes.
As the Three Stooges used to say in parting "Let's cheese it."
We grew up on Borden’s milk, ice cream. Sure miss it. We had home delivery when our kids were little. So sorry to see it go........
Oh it won’t go, it’s just reorganizing down................
sales of milk alternatives continue to soar.
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Price per gallon is around $1.25 here in central Illinois. I want it back to $1.00 like it was a year ago or 88¢ or 79¢, like it was 2 & 3 years ago.
Generic brands milk has been dirt cheap around here for about five years now. I can taste zero difference between “Great Value” & “Sealtest” I suspect it all comes from the same cows.
Well, were they contented cows?...............
Seriously?? Did you just refer to cutting the cheese??
No, it was a reference to the 1920’s Dairy Cheese industry trying to get Velveeta taken off the market by claiming it wasn’t real cheese.
They failed, obviously..................
‘I wonder if he liked gladiator movies?..................’
I think he prefers grown naked men...
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