Milk produced in Cache Valley - sterilized milk, no less - will soon debut on Hong Kong grocery store shelves, making it the first American-made milk to be sold there.
Logan-based dairy products manufacturer Gossner Foods announced last week an agreement between the Utah Department of Agriculture and government officials in Hong Kong to allow the company's UHT (ultra high temperature) milk to be sold through the British colony's chain of GrandMart club stores."We're very excited to see our milk go to Hong Kong," Gossner Foods President Delores Wheeler said. "There are very few dairy products that are sterilized, allowing them to go around the world."
The first shipment of the UHT milk is scheduled to arrive at Hong Kong supermarkets in mid-January. Because of the milk's sterilization and packaging in light-resistant cardboard containers, it can be stored at room temperature for several months.
While GrandMart management wanted the milk from the start, Wheeler said, Hong Kong government officials were skeptical. She said they agreed to ink the deal only after eight months of negotiations, which saw several processing and packaging changes made to the milk before it could be shipped to Hong Kong. Labels had to be translated into Mandarin Chinese, and since the Chinese prefer their milk "unadulterated" by any additives, Wheeler said, milk bound for Hong Kong will bypass Gossner's standard process of fortifying UHT milk with vitamin D.
Brent Parker, who operates a family-owned dairy in Wellsville, Cache County, said he is excited at the prospect of the new Southeast Asia market bolstering local milk producers' incomes.
"This is what the dairy industry has been trying to do for years," Parker said, adding that not being able to reach foreign markets like Hong Kong "has been like a dark cloud hanging over the industry." Parker's dairy produces 20,000 pounds of milk each day for Gossner Foods.
"Utah dairy farmers do such a good job," said Men Wheeler, husband of Gossner president Delores Wheeler, who also operates his own Cache Valley dairy. "We have a surplus of milk in Utah. When (dairy products) leave our area, it makes a better price for the dairy farmer and on down the line. Everyone gains."
Though not the company's first foray into overseas exporting - Gossner milk is already sold in, among other areas, the Philippines and American Samoa - Wheeler said she hopes the deal with Hong Kong will help open other Pacific Rim nations, allowing her product to reach a population of nearly 3 billion people.
Wheeler said she has no way of estimating how profitable the new venture will be.
"We just have to go in and fight head-to-head with everybody that's already there," she said.