Consumer Dairy Product Expenditures and Preferences for Dairy Products Made With Tennessee Milk

The dairy industry in Tennessee has experienced changes over the past few decades. As of August 2019, the number of dairy operations licensed to sell Grade “A” milk in the state was 196, down from 271 in 2018. A potential market opportunity for Tennessee’s dairy producers may lie in selling value-added dairy products to consumers who prefer local foods. In 2018, the Tennessee Department of Agriculture, Business Development Division, instituted the Tennessee Milk Logo (Figure 1). This logo was designed to help consumers identify fluid milk sourced, processed, and bottled in Tennessee. However, no such logo exists for dairy products, including cheese, ice cream, butter, sour cream and yogurt. Thus, we created and examined a hypothetical logo — “Made with Tennessee Milk” — to assess consumer preferences for dairy products. The market potential for dairy products made with Tennessee Milk is unknown, and Tennessee consumer preferences and attitudes toward dairy products are not well documented. The goal of this publication is to convey results of a consumer survey regarding Tennessee consumer expenditures and preferences for dairy products to producers, retailers and policy makers. This study presents: • Willingness to pay for dairy products made with Tennessee Milk; • Potential consumer purchases of dairy products made with Tennessee Milk; • Locations where consumers would purchase dairy products; • Consumer attitudes toward dairy products that are made with Tennessee Milk; • Distance traveled for dairy products to be considered local; • Current consumer purchase patterns for dairy products; and • Respondent demographics.