Tennessee Consumer Perceptions of Milk: Purchase Considerations, Safety and Price

The Tennessee dairy industry is facing many challenges with aging farmer populations, low milk prices and dairy farms struggling to maintain profitability. Many dairy producers have retired, sold out or lost contracts with milk handlers leading to a steady decline of dairy farms. Tennessee has declined to 179 licensed Grade ‘A’ dairy farms in January 2020 from 276 Grade ‘A’ dairy farms in January 2018 – a decrease of 97 dairies in two years (Strasser, 2021). With the loss of dairy farms, we can expect economic difficulties for businesses that provide goods and services to the dairy industry across Tennessee. Along with declining milk prices, consumer demand for fluid milk has also been decreasing (Figure 1; USDA-ERS, 2020). The trend to consume local goods and services could potentially help Tennessee producers. In 2018, a Tennessee Milk logo was created to promote milk produced and bottled in Tennessee. Theoretically, this milk could be considered premium and demand a higher price. The consumer demand for locally branded fluid milk is unknown. The goal of this publication is to provide results of a consumer survey of perceptions, preferences and purchasing considerations for local, organic and store-brand milk to dairy producers, retailers and policy makers. As part of this study, we present: • Study participants’ willingness to pay for local, organic or store-branded milk • Purchasing trends for milk • Attributes associated with local, organic or store-branded milk • Participants’ various definitions of “local” according to geographic regions and miles traveled