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Milk marketing board explains role in keeping fresh milk available in small towns
Summary
The North Dakota Milk Marketing Board told lawmakers its role is to manage distribution and minimum pricing for milk and milk products so locally owned grocery stores and small towns retain reliable access to fresh milk.
Chris Sallard, chairman of the North Dakota Milk Marketing Board, briefed the joint agriculture committees on the board’s role in ensuring milk availability to small and medium communities across the state.
Sallard said the five‑member board, funded by a modest milk checkoff, licenses and manages distribution, sets minimum wholesale and retail pricing and acts as an industry stabilizer to protect locally owned retailers from price practices that could convert milk into a loss leader. “The wholesale and retail pricing sets the minimum that distributors and retailers can sell their milk and milk related products, thus negating the temptation for out‑of‑state retailers,” Sallard said.
He described the board’s distribution oversight as intended to maintain milk service outside North Dakota’s four largest cities and emphasized the product’s nutritional importance for school and family consumption. Sallard said North Dakota’s dairy sector has declined in the number of producers but that the state continues to supply milk to bottling plants in Fargo and Perham, Minn.; trucking logistics and the loss of local plants create challenges for small‑scale dairies.
No committee action was recorded. The board described its functions and cited collaboration with processors, retailers, and state agencies to maintain milk supply and price stability in rural communities.
