Organic Valley’s parent cooperative continues to edge toward $1 billion in annual sales, logging an 8.5 percent increase in 2013.
The Coulee Region Organic Produce Pool’s 2013 sales were $929.5 million, compared with $856.9 million the previous year, according to the financial report released Thursday during the co-op’s annual meeting at the La Crosse Center.
The increase came in spite of supply-and-demand miscues and a fire in May that leveled much of the co-op’s headquarters in La Farge, said CEO George Siemon.
“It was a hard year for us — a good, old-fashioned humbling,” Siemon said in the annual report.
More than 500 of Organic Valley’s 1,844 farmer members attended the three-day meeting, hearing optimistic reports about its products, such as a 30 percent rise in butter and cheese sales and the brand’s becoming the top-selling organic milk in China.
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“Organic dairy has been the growth engine, and milk has been the lead horse,” said sales vice president Eric Newman.
“But butter is back, domestically and internationally,” he said, partly because of the acknowledgment that high-quality fats enhance health.
The largest organic farmer co-op in the world, 26-year-old Organic Valley represents about 50 percent of the organic milk sales in the United States, Newman said.
Sales of conventional fluid milk have been declining, partly because of the popularity of plant-based fluids such as almond milk, he said.
“That is disappointing, because we want people to drink milk — and we hope they drink organic,” Newman said.
Although overall milk sales are dropping, organic is gaining ground, accounting for 7.5 percent of total sales, according to industry statistics.
Produce also is becoming more fertile ground, Newman said.
“Even though produce is a small part of our business, it grew 30 percent last year,” he said.
The company built a refrigerated warehouse near Hillsboro that has attracted 150 producers, notably Amish in Vernon County, Newman said.
The co-op also seeks more exports to Asia, the Mideast and Europe, Siemon said.
“The world is changing rapidly,” he said, noting that organic foods once were sold only in co-op stores but now are common in major grocery chains.
“Grass-fed beef is becoming a big, big deal now,” Siemon said, adding that the co-op is increasing efforts to market beef.
Helping that endeavor is one of Organic Valley’s new member groups, Australia-based OBE Organic, Siemon said.
OBE general manager Dalene Wray said her co-op supplies 500,000 pounds of trimmings to Organic Valley. That can include every meat part of the animal except steaks, she said.
The United States is the only country in the world where the trimmings can be processed into products such as organic hamburger and meatballs, said Wray, who led an OBE delegation from Down Under to attend the meeting.
“Our supply complements what their farmers are doing,” Wray said. “Our supply supports a product they don’t have a supply of.”
Organic efforts are becoming mainstream, said noted poet, author and activist Wendell Berry, who delivered the keynote address Thursday.
“I’m encouraged — we’ve gone a long way to make local economies grow,” said the 79-year-old Berry, whose causes have included peace campaigns dating to the Vietnam War, as well as environmental advocacy and cultural criticism.
Organic practices must try to balance two potential opposites — providing a living for farmers as well as affordable food for consumers, said Berry, who also has farmed since buying land in Kentucky in the 1960s.
“Livable — that goes against cheap food,” he said during an interview. “On the other hand, a significant amount of the population needs cheap food.
“There’s nothing wrong with getting a premium for organic produce, but it isn’t fair to talk about an organic premium without acknowledging that a lot of people can’t afford the premium,” he said.
On the home front, energy efficiency has been one of the cornerstones of rebuilding the La Farge headquarters, said Jonathan Reinbold, sustainability research and grants manager.
The new building will be 40 percent more efficient with the use of heat exchangers, LEED lights and solar energy, he said.
The May 14 blaze destroyed one section of the building and heavily damaged another. The damaged section recently reopened and the demolished section is expected to open in June, Reinbold said.
Between 300 and 350 employees work in the building, with another 100 working in a Westby bank building the co-op bought after the fire to keep operations going, he said.
One of the goals CEO Siemon listed for the next year is completing a new office building in Cashton that was delayed in part because of the fire.
“There’s nothing wrong with getting a premium for organic produce, but it isn’t fair to talk about an organic premium without acknowledging that a lot of people can’t afford the premium.” Wendell Berry, author and activist who delivered the keynote address