News

Vilsack sees dairy marketing opportunities in Japan, Asia

Tom Vilsack

The leader of the U.S. Dairy Export Council says there is a tremendous opportunity to expand U.S. dairy sales in Asia.  Council President and former U.S. Ag Secretary Tom Vilsack tells Brownfield they are working to certify 80 U.S. dairy plants so they can ship products to China.  He says they are also working with Yum! Brands and their Chinese fast food franchises.  “They are the owners of 78-hundred Kentucky Fried Chickens, Pizza Huts and Taco Bells in China currently serving two billion customers a year.  Their goal is to get to 20-thousand stores, so there’s within the food service, tremendous opportunity to promote dairy.”

Vilsack says Singapore can be a launching pad for dairy opportunities in Malaysia, Indonesia, Thailand, and Vietnam. He says U.S. producers can create the products they want and need.  “Each country has a different culture.  Each country has a different set of tastes. Each country has a different set of religious requirements that require us to be very customer-specific, but again, tremendous emerging market opportunities there in cheese, whey, powders, and dairy concepts.”

Vilsack traveled to Singapore, China, and Japan recently.  He tells Brownfield the U.S. needs to be more aggressive in its Japanese marketing efforts.  “In Japan, we have at any point in time, one or two people working in that entire country to try to promote U.S. dairy products.  Fonterra, which is a competitor of ours from New Zealand, they have 70, so you see that they’ve been there longer, they have more established relationship, so we’re playing catch-up.”

Vilsack says Japan only has 62-hundred remaining dairy farmers, and their average age is 68, meaning Japan will look to the rest of the world for dairy products.  And, with 18-million new Chinese-born every year, Vilsack says the Trump administration needs to work immediately to negotiate bilateral trade deals after pulling out of the Trans Pacific Partnership because competitors are not wasting any time establishing their own deals.

 

 

 

Add Comment

Your email address will not be published.


 

Stay Up to Date

Subscribe for our newsletter today and receive relevant news straight to your inbox!