The U.S. has grown nonfat dry milk/skim milk powder (SMP) exports to between 25-30 percent of total SMP trade, up from 7 percent in 2000, which is critical to help countries that don’t have enough or access to fresh milk. The increase happened in part because the National Dairy Council (NDC) and U.S. Dairy Export Council (USDEC) helped conduct one of checkoff’s largest research efforts ever that included 33 projects conducted at 10 universities.

The research helped develop low-spore milk powders that can impact processing and shelf life of products. Checkoff representatives were then able to communicate with suppliers and end users to learn best practices on producing low-spore powders.

Read: NDC, USDEC research efforts support milk powder’s competitiveness