May'19 Board Book

“It was almost a cleanout of employees on that shift,” Larson says. “It kind of left us high and dry for employees to milk cows.” As the Larson’s were dealing with the aftermath of the video, the industry began to react as well.

“We at SMI became aware of the first video just hours prior to its releasing,” says Jim Sleper, CEO at Southeast Milk Inc. “Immediately we launched an internal investigation in conjunction with the FARM program (Farmers Assuring Responsible Management).”

SMI immediately connected with Larson, then reached out to customers. “We wanted to reassure our customers that we do not tolerate animal abuse and that we take this situation very seriously,” Sleper says. “We communicated with all of our customers about the commitments SMI made and how much we value their support and trust.” Sleper says that even now, more than a year after the incident, they continue to have ongoing discussions with customers about what happened in those videos.

SMI also contacted their other dairy producer members by email, letter, and personal conversations to keep them informed. Media and angry consumers made the connection between Larson and SMI, and calls flooded their corporate offices. Sleper says they worked with FDF, NMPF and other industry stakeholders to respond to media inquiries in a timely manner. The right communications are critical in the first few hours in a situation like this, and Sleper says SMI felt it necessary to take a major role in communications, strategy and decision-making. He says while it takes a team effort between different stakeholders, a cooperative can play a pivotal role with its link between other dairy producer members, customers and stakeholders such as FDF, NMPF and industry experts.

Jamie Jonker, vice president of sustainability and scientific affairs at NMPF, was one of the first people SMI contacted when the news broke.

“Within the National Dairy FARM program, we have what we call our Willful Mistreatment Protocol,” Jonker says. Unfortunately Jonker says they get allegations of mistreatment relatively often, so they have to go through a process to determine if the allegations are credible. In this instance, there was enough evidence to determine that the allegations of mistreatment were indeed credible. This triggered a third-party audit on the farm that indicated action items for improvements. What made this situation unique was that Larson Dairy was just one of four farms that were part of the activist target. The others were Davie, MacArthur and Burnham Dairies, all in the Okeechobee area. Having more than one dairy involved placed a cloud of concern over the entire Okeechobee milk shed, which forced the hand of milk buyers. For example, while SMI