In this episode of Your Dairy Checkoff Podcast, join our dairy farmer hosts, Wisconsin’s Laurie Winkelman and West Virginia’s Joe Shockey, as they have a conversation with Liz Jalkiewicz, registered dietitian and the nutrition specialist with the American Dairy Association North East, and Julie Ostrow, registered dietitian and the Vice President of dairy experience and wellness with Midwest Dairy, about why farmers might not see dairy’s benefits shared more broadly in the area of sports nutrition?
It’s easy to feel frustrated seeing social influencers touting dairy alternatives on the internet or other non-dairy options promoted at your local gym but that’s where your checkoff dollars come in, prompting evidence-based information to influential audiences to set the record straight. The work dairy checkoff is doing in the realm of sports nutrition range anywhere from targeting high school athletes, enhancing college athletics programs, and providing dairy nutrition education and outreach programs to health professionals that can include sports dietitians.
Learn more as these two experts discuss how checkoff is partnering with credentialed health professionals to spread the goodness of dairy and how even farmers can share this information with their local athletic groups.
Links from the show:
- Here’s the link to the Illinois High Schools Association TikTok contest top 4 finalists.
- On TikTok, use the hashtag #ihsadairy
- AmericanDairy.com website > Sports Nutrition
- Dairy Diary Blog > Sports Nutrition
- 2021 SNAP Content Booklet
To learn more about the national dairy checkoff and your local dairy checkoffs, please visit www.usdairy.com.
Dairy Farmer Hosts:
Farmer Host – Laurie Winkelman (Wisconsin)
Farmer Host – Joe Shockey (West Virginia)
Industry Experts:
Liz Jalkiewicz – ADA NE
Julie Ostrow – Midwest Dairy
Transcript (machine generated – please ignore typos):
Laurie Winkelman 0:00
How do some of our local check offs work with sports dieticians,
Julie Ostrow 0:04
the University of Nebraska, the sports dietitian there. And director of performance is a sports dietitian who’s kind of a pioneer in the field. And we’ve been partnering with him, they want to make sure that those athletes are fueled properly the nutrition that the quarterback needs versus some one of the guys on the defensive line. The training table helps address that. It’s an opportunity for them to create their own pizzas. And of course, cheese is a big part of that for some protein. We’re also working with Mr. Ellis on some podcasts that are part of the Husker radio network. And he says that dairy is one of the highest quality and valuable protein sources for his athletes.
Laurie Winkelman 0:59
Well, hello, everyone and welcome to another episode of your Dairy Checkoff Podcast. I’m Laurie Winckelmann, a dairy farmer’s daughter and part time farmer on weekends, as well as a dairy cow nutritionists in Wisconsin. I’m joined by Joe shocky, a veterinarian and dairy farmer from West Virginia. Today joining us for our podcast on sports nutrition, we have two registered dieticians. First is Liz joku. It’s a registered dietitian and the nutrition specialist with the American Dairy Association northeast. Also joining us today is Julie Mattson. Austro, a registered dietitian and the Vice President of dairy experience and wellness with Midwest Dairy. So before we dive into our discussion about sports nutrition, let’s learn a little bit more about our guests. Liz, would you like to please tell us a little bit more about your work.
Liz Jalkiewicz 1:59
Thank you guys for having me on today. I’m really excited to be here and speak to our dairy farmers about our sports nutrition program. So like you said, I’m one of the health and wellness specialists here at a Dean and I am a registered dietitian. I have over 15 years experience in the field. And I’m honored to say that for the past three and a half years I’ve been able to work on behalf of our dairy farmers. In my role here at a Dane I provide dairy nutrition education and outreach programs to help professionals and he thought leaders in our territory and some of them include sports dieticians with that program, I help them lead and manage our sports nutrition advisory panel, and we’ll get into a little more detail about that today. Thanks for having me.
Laurie Winkelman 2:43
Thanks for sharing what you do, Liz, it sounds like you certainly get to talk to a lot of influential people when it comes to sports nutrition. How about you Julie, tell us a little bit more about your work.
Julie Ostrow 2:53
Thanks, Lori. I’m proud to be here. I am the Vice President of dairy experience wellness. I’ve worked on behalf of dairy farmers for over 15 years and have been a registered dietician. Since the last century, let’s just say that I as the vice president of dairy experience wellness, I’m responsible for directing the sustainable nutrition and wellness activities on behalf of our dairy farmers in nine Midwest states going from North Dakota, South Dakota, Minnesota, Iowa, Illinois, Nebraska, Missouri, Kansas, and Arkansas.
Joe Shockey 3:30
Hi, this is Joe shocky, a veterinarian and a dairy farmer from West Virginia. Great to meet you. Listen Julie, thanks for joining Lori and I today. One of my first questions for you is in lizard Julie either one of you can answer. Why does it seem like many athletes and fitness influencers are touting dairy alternatives versus real dairy products like chocolate milk? What is the Dairy Checkoff doing about this?
Julie Ostrow 3:58
Well, I think it depends on who you’re listening to. There are lots of people in the fitness world who are also promoting chocolate milk and the benefits of dairy. Let me give you just a firsthand example. This happened to me a couple years ago, while I was at the American College of Sports Medicine, one of the leading professional organizations in Sports Fitness. And National Dairy Council DMI had a booth at the at the meeting. And I’ve also been to a lot of registered dietician, we call it fancy. It’s their professional meeting for dietitians. been to a lot of those national meetings. I had had so many people come up to me at the booth at the sports medicine conference. We’re so excited to see dairy, love dairy, couldn’t help talking about it, how they talked about it to their clients and the people that they work with. So I think it depends on the sector that you’re in. One of the neat things about Dairy Checkoff is that in all of the different states and regions. We all do something a little bit differently. And so across the country, you’ll see kind of some variations on things. But I think checkoff is doing a lot. I would say, we also lean into our friends at milk PEP, who have a huge chocolate milk campaign called built with chocolate milk, again, leaning on the science. And many people will remember last summer, the viral video of Olympian Katie Ledecky, as she was swimming across the swimming pool with that glass of chocolate milk on her head,
Liz Jalkiewicz 5:41
if I can, I just wanted to piggyback a little bit off what Julie was saying. And when it comes to certain fitness influencers, unfortunately, I think, you know, sometimes they think the louder they are, the more that they’ll be heard or seen. And, and it seems like sometimes people who maybe don’t have that education aren’t just taking all the information they get on social media and like piecing things together. And so that’s where, you know, in terms of the SRS, where we come in, and I know, you know, here at a Dane, we focus on the Gen Z athlete as part of our sports nutrition advisory panel, we know that Gen Z has a lot of purchasing power, like $100 billion in purchasing power as a generation is the segment. And so we really tried to focus on them for our sports nutrition messaging, as athletes and showing them how dairy can play a role in your diet to achieve optimal sports performance. So that’s just one thing, Joe? That’s a great question. You do see it a lot on social media and people are just getting their information from there, unfortunately. So it’s our job as part of the checkoff and using the dairy farmers dollars to set the record straight and be louder and share that evidence based information when it comes to dairy. But making sure that we packaged it in a way so that it actually is consumed by Gen Z and by other consumers as well.
Laurie Winkelman 6:57
I had no idea that you spend so much of your time going to meetings, and conferences that we as dairy farmers don’t even know exist, like we don’t think about college coaches, going to meetings and then being educated by people like you. So you just highlighted some of the things that as a farmer, we will never get to see per se, but hopefully the message does filter down then to our local level. Speaking of local level, how do some of our local check offs work with sports dieticians?
Liz Jalkiewicz 7:30
We work with sports dieticians in a few different ways. But primarily, we work with them through the sports nutrition advisory panel, which for the sake of me saying that long name throughout the podcast, we call it snap. So we work with us snap, and we have 16 Sports dieticians who sit on that parent panel. First and foremost, they are dairy advocates. And so we make sure we vet through them look at their social media, we look at the different things that they’ve done in their career. We talk to them interview them before they serve on this panel. We have 16 of them throughout our territory, and they specialize in sports nutrition. The credential for sports dietitian is a CSSD, which is a certified sports dietitian. And so that’s credential through the Academy of Nutrition and Dietetics or CDR, which basically manages the licensure and the credentialing of our position as dietitians. We work with them primarily as content experts. So they create content for us all year long. And the main purpose of it is to send it out to high school coaches in our territory, and there’s over 14,000 of them that receive this content on a monthly basis. So the end user of this content is the high school student athlete, we reach over 85,000 student athletes on a monthly basis with the content that they are creating, it’s really important to know that you know, sports dieticians, they’re, they’re using evidence based information that’s on trend. It’s relevant. It’s what they’re hearing on the ground in terms of what are the topics that these kids want to these athletes want to read about and learn about. And so we’re creating this content for them in a blog format and in video format as well.
Julie Ostrow 9:10
The Certified the specialized dietitian, sports dietitian. It’s a very specialized higher level, if you will, credential certification within the world of Nutrition and Dietetics. The work that Midwest is doing has doing is focusing actually on those college athletes. And so we have some really cool examples going on. The University of Nebraska Lincoln also known as the Huskers, the sports dietitian there and director of performance is a sports dietitian who’s kind of a pioneer in the field, if you will, and we’ve been partnering with him. gentleman named Dave Ellis to support their training table and sports teams, you know over the years The collegiate teams, they invest a whole lot in these athletes that come to campus and help build their programs. And especially when you look at a big 10 group, like the Nebraska Cornhuskers, or some of the other groups that we work with, they, they want to make sure that those athletes are fueled properly. And if you think about, especially a football team, you know, the nutrition that the quarterback needs, versus one of the guys on the defensive line versus even the kicker or punter is totally different. So that’s really, really specialized in what they do. The training table helps address that. And one of the cool things that they’re doing in Nebraska is where you supported them with some new things like a pizza oven, they cook just for those students, they come into the training area, and it’s an opportunity for them to create their own pizzas. And of course, cheese is a big part of that for some protein. We’re also working with Mr. Ellis on some podcasts that are part of the Husker radio network. And he says that dairy is one of the highest quality and valuable protein sources for his athletes. So going on great dairy champions like this, getting those messages out not only to those athletes who are, you know, working in those programs, but also in some of those broadcasts are another great way to to get that message out about the importance of dairy in athletics. The other one that I want to share is with South Dakota State University, we call it SDSU. And we working with a sports dietitian, actually from the Sanford Health Systems, which is one of the larger health systems in the upper Midwest. We’re partnering with them to promote the benefits of chocolate milk to student athletes. And so chocolate milk is offered to all of the SDSU student athletes for their refueling stations. And they also use whey protein powder as part of their smoothie regimen. Recently, we recorded different coaches and athletic trainers from SDSU in a video testimonial, that is also playing at some of their basketball and football games. So again, I think we all do different kinds of things, different focus, but I think you’ll see there’s a commonality with the Gen Z audience as promoting sound, research and science that shows the benefits of dairy.
Laurie Winkelman 12:41
Julie, you definitely had my attention when you said pizza oven because I eat pizza probably four or five nights a week, because I’m hungry all the time as a marathon runner and CrossFit athlete. So pizza is literally my favorite food loaded with extra cheese. Well, I
Julie Ostrow 13:00
think most people agree with you. And also, you know, these athletes, they’re also needing to show them how to fuel themselves when they’re, they’re not on campus, or when they’re, you know, going to an away game or something like that. So I think pizza is a common language. And then of course Lori the more cheese you have, right, you get a great cheese pull. Everybody loves that. So
Laurie Winkelman 13:25
yeah, you can’t go wrong. And you just mentioned something that hits home for me too. I volunteer coach, high school cross country, and we have a great athletic trainer, who then comes in and does have a nutrition background. So it’s always key for me when she starts talking about nutrition that she’s including dairy, but she talks to them about what to eat after the race and what to eat before the race and especially with runners it’s very important what you eat before the race but the the refueling and after and how to pack for that really is important. And it sounds like you guys are preparing Lots of athletes with information in that regard too. But when it’s when it comes to the farmer again, me and Joe, where do where do we go find this information about refuelling and sports nutrition? What are the best resources for us?
Julie Ostrow 14:20
Well, I would advocate for your local dairy council. Both a Dane and Midwest as well as National Dairy Council and DMI dairy good. Dada Oregon and our of our websites and Instagram posts. We have lots of great information.
Liz Jalkiewicz 14:38
Yeah, I agree. Julie. I was just gonna say also that for American dairy, you know, all those websites you just mentioned are great. We just recently revamped our website American dairy calm last summer a lot more user friendly than it was in the past. And so if someone does go to our site or a farmers, direct people there can just search things specific to keyword and actually get the information you’re looking for. So if they’re looking for protein here that’s specific to protein or calcium or vitamin D or running or sports specific, you know, you can find that information pretty easily.
Julie Ostrow 15:09
There’s also a whey protein Research Consortium. And there’s a website, you know, for folks to go check that out. Lots of awesome science. I know, dairy management corporated, a partner in that research along with lots of other organizations to processors and associations and multinational brands. So lots of really good science and information a lot of athletes are looking for, how can I pack as much punch, and usually that comes in the punch of protein? How can I get that into food without having lots of quantity, as you probably know, if you’re going to go out for a run, or if you’re, you’re going to be in some kind of endurance sport. So whey protein tends to be one of the things that athletes love to be able to add to a smoothie or you can put it into oatmeal, lots of other kinds of foods. But that’s another resource that there’s lots of really good stuff on
Joe Shockey 16:03
as a dairy farmer. And as I’ve gotten older, one of the things I’ve enjoyed partnering with the local Dairy Association at a Mid East out of Columbus, Ohio, which serves both Ohio and West Virginia. We host the dieticians from Ohio University in Athens. And it’s, I always enjoy that group. I love hosting the dietitians from Oh, you because they’re so knowledgeable. But the one thing that they’re lacking that I’ve noticed, they’ve never been on a farm. And so we give them that authentic experience when we host them, our families around, we take them on a tour of the farm, you know, everybody loves to feed the baby calves. Everybody loves to see the kittens, but we take them through the milking parlor while we’re actively milking cows, we explain the process. You know, at the end of the day, we all just have to work together to explain how this works. And in terms of the sports nutrition, I think that’s lost on a lot of kids today. I’m not a marathon runner, like you. But I know with our children, it’s so important to how they eat is how they perform. But we see we see these opportunities here in West Virginia, like it all in ships. And again, this is a partnership through the Mideast Dairy Association, where they talk about built with chocolate milk. I know there’s a lot of promotions with chocolate milk. And I’m starting to see some of the other college football teams maybe like Georgia, Michigan State recently are signing some of these NFL deals the name image and likeness. Can anybody talk about what you’re going with these college teams and add to what you’re doing with the high school teams, or maybe even the national team with like the Fuel Up to Play 60 And these different things, I think it’s important that we all work together to share the great nutrition found in dairy.
Liz Jalkiewicz 18:05
I think this is part of this is part of the beauty of SRS because we all do work in while the umbrella topic here is sports nutrition. I think you guys can see already that how a Dane works with sports nutrition and how how Juliette Midwest works with it are a little different. She their focus is a little bit more on the college age. While our focus here is a little more on the high school app. There’s a lot of synergies here, but I think we’re reaching different people, which is a good thing. So again, our focus is Gen Z athletes primarily even though Gen Z is like 10 to 23. We’re focusing more on like that 13 to 18 year olds here today. And we do have, you know, our NFL partnerships with seven teams within our territory from New York State down to DC. And we do have the field to play 60 program, which is very active and kids love it and the schools love it and participate. And it’s a great way to influence these high school athletes and these kids who are participating in sports to get them active and get them to consider using chocolate milk as a refill beverage. We also have our sports nutrition advisory panelist who some of them work as the NFL team dietitians in our territory. And so we’re lucky to be able to work with them and get some insights and trends from them and what they’re seeing from a professional athlete side of things and bring those topics and those messages back to like the high school athlete in terms of things to learn about. While not all things may resonate, there’s definitely like Julie was saying protein, different supplements just because they’re buzzwords and they’re things that people want to hear about. But at the end of the day, you know, we want to focus on the positive dairy message that milk cheese, yogurt and other dairy products have to offer in the diet to help them achieve optimal sports performance. So that’s the end goal there. We also work with six high school athletic associations in our territory. So this could be like the New York State Public High School Athletic Association, Pennsylvania, DC New Jersey, each state or big region has one. And so we have sponsorships with them where we can help to provide chocolate milk to student athletes at championship games as a refuel beverage. And, you know, I’ll just pause there for a second, because I think there’s really no better way to make a positive impact on getting the message across, then when you can put the product in the hands of these student athletes, that really drills the point home. And I think combined with messaging in these stadiums or different sporting event locations, we provide banner ads, messaging on branded products and different ways so that not only are they holding the product in their hand and drinking it, but they’re also seeing the messaging there. Another aspect is in the digital space, over the years, it’s just become more and more relevant to be present in the digital space. And not only just putting ads out and putting posts out, but really targeting who you want this message to be seen by. And so I think that’s where sometimes very farmers may not see our messaging in the digital space. But that’s probably because maybe they’re not the target for that specific message. Like, we’re trying to get that 1415 year old soccer player in high school to see that chocolate milk is a great reveal beverage, right. So that, to me is just something worth touching on a little bit because I guess there’s like traditional advertising to high school athletes and college and professional teams. But I think understanding like the digital component to it and being present on social to educate these high school athletes on chocolate is a great refill beverage is really important to understand, too.
Joe Shockey 21:38
I just noticed what was pulling at my heartstrings there a little bit, because I keep mentioning our children, but our daughters with the high school soccer and all the travel soccer that they do. During the high school season for all road games. My wife and I provide chocolate milk from the local dairy processor. And we try to share that story. And we’ve had some of the girls come up to us afterwards and ask us questions. And they make that connection to a real dairy farmer. But they say what they look forward to after the game is having that chocolate drink.
Laurie Winkelman 22:15
I think we have like a really good connection here. And that we have these regional milk marketing groups Ada, and Midwest Dairy, Wisconsin milk marketing bored are all the different letters and associations, groups working from the top down. But then listening to Joe talk about providing chocolate milk to his daughter’s teams and one of the dairy farmers I work with provided it to the local soccer team. It sounds like we could try to work even more in concert. And I think at the grassroots level, we just need to know that we can ask our milk Marketing Association for help. Whether that’s in funding or promotion or material, we just need to know that you guys are here for us when we’re trying to to work at that kindergarten soccer game, Saturday morning, or whatever it might be. But it sounds like maybe we just don’t even know that these resources exists that you have. And this is really good to hear that we can meld some of the, you know, bigger group effort with our grassroots efforts on the ground. So that’s that’s really awesome.
Julie Ostrow 23:17
You know, Liz was talking about the social media part and I highly agree, especially with the Gen Z audience. And we one of our staff members in Illinois has been working with the Illinois High School Association now, it’s both athletics as well as extra curricular kinds of activities. But we currently are doing a tic toc competitions. It’s i h s a dairy, which is Illinois High School Association. Dairy is the hashtag. And you can see some of these videos. One of the reasons that these are so successful is these are authentic videos, that these students are creating really, really clever kinds of things anywhere from a girls basketball team going on to a dairy farm, dressed up in holiday gear, just having fun dancing, enjoying milk, lot of milk and cookies in these videos. But they’re all having a really good time and sharing that positive dairy message. Again, it wasn’t just chocolate milk, it was milk cheese, for the most part, but that we did have a contest. We know that contest people are competitive and there are four finalists currently up on their their website to vote for a football team a bowling team girls a basketball and a girl softball team so the winning video if you will, the student students will win and undeniably dairy prize package and their coaches will be able to go to special trip to Hallas Hall, which if you’re a Bears fan, you know that is the practice facility for the Chicago Bears and Not everybody gets to go into Hallas. Hall. So that’s a pretty big deal. So we’re really excited about that, to be able to showcase to that audience and promote the benefits of, of dairy. We have there, what 32 NFL teams and I think all of our states and regions have some kind of relationship with those NFL teams. And we do and and I’m sure Liz does as well, we have the Minnesota Vikings, the Chicago Bears, and the Kansas City Chiefs. And we are, you know, always excited to work with those athletes. And that’s one of the things obviously, that we vet out for somebody who will eat and drink dairy, and also talk about it and promote it.
Laurie Winkelman 25:43
Julie, you’ll have to share the links for the videos to the show notes so that people can check that out. Could you guys tell us a little more about what you continue to plan to do to reach Gen Z in the coming years?
Julie Ostrow 25:57
Yeah, one of the other things Joe mentioned it earlier is also well, in July of last year, this year, NCAA athletes are now allowed to sign endorsement deals for their ni ELLs their name image and likeness, again, without any threat to their ability to to keep their eligibility. So we are going in some of our areas working with a sports technology company that maximizes these value of endorsements for athletes. And you can go on and some are, you know, lower costs, we’re going to be doing that and looking for some of those student athletes in our various regions. Again, we go all the way from North Dakota, all the way down to Arkansas, there’s a lot of diversity and a lot of really talented people.
Liz Jalkiewicz 26:46
And I’ll add to that, Laurie in terms of reaching Gen Z. But what we’re excited is that to say that in 2022, we are working on a strategy that is going to reach Gen Z directly the Gen Z athlete directly on social media and in the digital space. And again, it’s that sweet spot of 13 to 18 years old, because what they want to see is vastly different than what 22 or 23 year old wants to see. So we’re working on gathering some Gen Z insights and research right now and plan to do some focus groups in q1 with this target audience to really get our finger on the pulse to better understand what it is that they’re looking for. When it comes to sports nutrition content. What it is that how do they want to digest this information? How do they want to package it up? And how do they want to receive it, so that we can you know, instead of just trying to do our best as a as an ASR, we want to really talk to our target audience figure out what it is they want and then deliver strategically. So you know, not being on tick tock and just posting here and there but being on tick tock with a purpose with the strategy consistently over time so that when they see our mess, so we really want to make sure we’re on there with a purpose, we’re getting our best use of dairy farmers dollars to make an impact with a positive dairy message when it comes to like optimal sports performance and including dairy in the diet. Julie was mentioning before because I also am not on tick tock myself. And I think that’s just a testament to that. Like, if we’re not if we’re not on this these platforms, how can we possibly come up? With the answer, right, so like, really going to the source talking to the Gen Z athlete themselves, figuring out what it is they want is, is that’s to me, like that’s the golden nugget. That’s what we have to figure out. And before we can devise a plan to x to implement any messaging that will resonate with them. So if we’re not, in that space every day, scrolling through tic tock videos for two hours and seeing what’s trending, you know, how can we possibly know the answer? So we really have to come up with a plan, talk to the target audience that we’re looking to send these messages out to and really get a better understanding of what it is they want what I know
Julie Ostrow 28:53
of tick tock, there’s that authenticity. So if, if there’s a lot of like, sponsored content, and it’s very obvious, that gets called out I mean, you know, it could backfire on you. There’s lots and lots of influences. And as Lou said, I don’t necessarily have to be in it, but I have to understand and that’s what that’s what our job is at Chekhov is to understand that to know who those people are and who those athletes and if we can get them to make the content that resonates with them even stronger. The more dairy champions we have, the better we’re all gonna be.
Joe Shockey 29:32
Well, Julie, I find that very interesting about Tik Tok and I’m also in the older generation, but our daughter reg and she’s 14 years old. And when she wakes up in the morning, she’s on Tik Tok. When she goes to bed at night, she’s on Tik Tok. And she knew that I was going to participate in this podcast, and she was just sharing with me some tic TOCs that were promoting dairy. And then you mentioned the Illinois High School Athletic Association. Gentleman contests and competitions, do you think it would be kind of a national down to a grassroots thing, that we could get some of these high school kids more engaged and maybe create a chocolate milk challenge throughout their sports seasons,
Julie Ostrow 30:15
a big thing that I’ve learned, my observation of Tic Tac is it still has to be authentic. And it has to be them coming up with it and not as, as old people saying, okay, and you have to do this. And you have to say that messaging. So that’s the hard part. The other piece, I think Joe is the more of our youth, our former youth, our kids who are growing up on farms, helping to tell their story about what it’s like, and there are various people who are doing that with content, but to be able to show what it’s like that you live where your family works, and maybe this is land that your grandparents and great grandparents had that kind of stuff is like there’s people the city people have no clue. I mean, we did a Fuel Up to Play 60 activity several years ago, and a lot of kids from the Minneapolis St. Paul area, and we had a farmer talking about how he’d been up late helping a calf being born and, and about milk and all this great stuff. And this little boy kept raising his hand and shaking his arm. And it’s like, I have to ask you, how do you get the milk? Me he really thought they went to the local grocery store to get the milk. So the more that you know, you use like your daughter’s and other farmer. Kids can can share that story and connect on a one on one level is huge.
Laurie Winkelman 31:44
I was gonna say maybe we should have name image likeness for farm kid athletes where we pay them to make little tic TOCs. For us.
Julie Ostrow 31:54
That’d be cool. Yeah, if you could find where those athletes are. There’s I know, there’s lots of them. That would be a cool twist.
Laurie Winkelman 32:03
Yeah, just this is just another example of like how much you guys are doing behind the scenes that typical dairy farmer demographic wouldn’t, wouldn’t get to see that’s just really, really neat.
Joe Shockey 32:15
Laurie, like when we were in college, I didn’t know what the dairy associations did. And it wasn’t until I got older, that it’s like, wow, that’s very impactful. And I think you said earlier in the podcast, they are behind the scenes having conversations. There’s a Sharon Maynard, who lives in our state. Yeah. And she’s reaching out to the medical doctors and the people with the school nutrition directors, she’s having these conversations, and she’s a resource. Because you know, farmers on a day to day, they have a lot they have to do. But at the end of the day, farmers I think need to speak up more. And they need to reach out to their dairy associations and find out how they can help.
Julie Ostrow 33:01
Love it. We agreed Joe, and I’m Liz and her colleagues as well, as I and my colleagues do the same thing. And Sharon does at Mideast is talking to those physicians, those thought leaders and influencers as well, we’re coming, trying to come at it from various angles, you know, the thought leaders as well as those actual consumers.
Joe Shockey 33:22
Yeah, well, you know, something I’m a young professional was a veterinarian, something I found you trust fant friends and family the most. And so graduating from a place like Ohio State. There were people who graduated from law school, graduated from the dentistry program, where medical doctors so forth and so on. And they have this misinformation that starts at an early age. It just continues so many of these false narratives about the dairy industry, and about dairy nutrition. So again, we all just have to work together to share this great story about the awesome nutrition
Julie Ostrow 34:01
of Midwest we do a lot of consumer research to consumer insights. And lately we’ve had some some different reports come back and they all keep telling us don’t lose sight of the fact that dairy is a beloved industry, the household penetration of dairy is so high that most other brands would love to have, what 90 plus percent of your product in consumer household so not to lose sight of that and even though it feels like there’s alternative kind of beverages also around but people still love dairy people love cheese, they love milk, they love the creaminess, they love hot chocolate, they love dairy, pizza, all of those things. So you know, I think to sit back and as a dietitian and as mom as much as I want to pound the nutrition. The bottom line is that people enjoy it and they will eat it. It’s not nutrition if it’s not eaten or drank so I I go into 2022 with lots of hope and excitement that, that dairy still has a solid place in, in American diets.
Liz Jalkiewicz 35:09
Yeah, it’s a staple. And I think in the in the retail space too, when people are shopping, I mean, there’s no denying that there’s a lot of other options available in their frigerator case. But I think where our role comes in as health professionals, is to educate, right, so at the end of the day, the consumer is going to make the decision they want. And they may have both milk and milk or dairy or, you know, an alternative in their refrigerator. But it’s our job to educate them. And there’s no competition when it comes to the nutritional value of milk versus an alternative. And that’s just as simple as it can get like when we compare labels. And when we look at the nutrition of these alternative options, compared to real dairy, there’s no there’s no competition. And so we tried to drill that point home talk about 13 Essential Nutrients talk about the protein, vitamin D, and the list goes on and on of why dairy should be why dairy is a staple and Chip continue to be a staple in your household.
Julie Ostrow 36:02
And so true, Liz, and to take that a step further back to our athletes who are performing to get into college who are performing maybe at their highest level or to go on to the pros, that science, that’s the difference. A lot of times as you alluded to other athletes, Laurie, why, you know, they may have be more vulnerable to broken bones, whatever, if they don’t have all of the the nutrients that dairy provides so
Laurie Winkelman 36:33
so what do you guys think are is the value of sports dieticians giving food advice to clients and how should sports dietitians reach their customers?
Liz Jalkiewicz 36:46
So I definitely there’s 100% value in working with sports dieticians, when it comes to sharing the positive daily message to athletes. For one again, these are credentialed health professionals, right so when you’re comparing them to just some fitness guru on tick tock, the information is going to be vastly different, the Tick Tock or is going to want to just share something that’s going to get them a million followers, a sports dietitian is going to share some evidence based accurate information that will actually help you get to your goals of whatever those sports related goals may be. And so I think that’s the key differentiator. We want to get this information into the hands of these credential to health professionals so they can share this message with their end user. And there are plenty of sports dieticians, who have huge followings on social media that across the country, a lot of the SRS are working with, which is excellent, and we need to continue doing that work. But aside from the social media component, a lot of eSports dietitians also do a lot of media. So they’re doing local media segments, national media segments, they’re working their authors, or they have blogs, so people are finding their content. And it’s our job as SRS. And to make the best use of the farmers dollar to get the actor information into their hands. And whether that be research, whether that be a consumer friendly, like infographic or video, something that they can then turn around and share with their community and their followers, their patients and clients. That’s part of what our job is, is to get the accurate information in their hands so it can reach the consumer. And so for me working with sports dieticians over someone who is just promote note promoting information but doesn’t have the credentials to back it up. It’s for us, it’s better to work with a credentialed health professional because we know that that inflammation is going to be accurate when they share it with their client.
Julie Ostrow 38:35
I totally agree. And the thing that Liz and I have in common with those sports dieticians is we can speak the same language, you know, we’re really in the same profession. They have a specialized credential on top of that, but the big thing and really this is one of the one of the main reasons I was really drawn to working for checkoff is that we’re grounded in science. And that’s what we have in common. Within the dietetics profession. I mentioned the College of Sports Medicine, those fitness professionals who are also grounded in science. That’s the commonality in that language that we speak. So when we start talking science, dairy, you know, dairy has a leg up for sure, compared to lots of other alternative types of options.
Joe Shockey 39:24
At the end of the day, how do we measure success with the types of programs that our associations are participating in?
Julie Ostrow 39:33
In all of the work that I do i It’s either trust or sales, and I think it’s both and there, there’s so related, that it’s really hard to pull those apart. But you know, the sales is real, I don’t say easy to get but those are easy for all of us to get and understand and you get a cash register tape, you see what was gone through a cafeteria or fast food restaurant or whatever it is in some of our partners to see what those results are and we can all relate to To that, the trust is harder. But I think it’s the most important because if we don’t have people’s trust, I don’t think we’re going to get the sales. And so it’s an ongoing challenge, at least for us at Midwest Dairy is how to measure that trust and measure it accurately. And successfully. A lot of what we do is telling those stories, like I’ve shared some of the stories back about what was going on at Nebraska or South Dakota, or even the Illinois High School Association to share some of that back with our farmer funders. Julie, I
Laurie Winkelman 40:36
think what you said about trust is really important. And interesting. And I, as I’m a, you know, I have a PhD in cow nutrition. So I love science. But people don’t always respond to science based information, but they respond to people they trust, like Joe said, and I was listening to a podcast or a meeting or something, and they talk about who do consumers trust, the least amount of trust, I think is near the government, right? Like nobody trusts government, and then further down, you know, lawyers and some other jobs. And then science is in the middle, and then weighed down on the other end, where 100% of trust is, is with a farmer. So I think you brought up a very important point about you have to have the science to be right. But you need the face of the farmer to gain the trust of the consumers to get them to buy the sales. And I think we’re in a unique industry where we have the science to, but we have the trustworthy, friendly faces of farmers that are passionate about their careers and jobs that want people to consume dairy products.
Julie Ostrow 41:45
Yep. For sure. Our secret weapon has always been our dairy farmers.
Liz Jalkiewicz 41:51
That’s a true yeah, Laurie, those are great points. We do a lot of pre and post surveys, like we do webinar series for our health professionals. Or even last year, we did a come back stronger webinar series for student athletes when sports were starting to come back after being shut down for all those months. And we’ve measured measure their their views of dairy pre and post survey like, what’s your overall view of dairy positive,
Julie Ostrow 42:13
neutral? Negative?
Liz Jalkiewicz 42:14
How many servings Do you consume a day of dairy? Like, do you know where to find our resources on our American dairy comm website. So we want to measure their before and after our webinars so that we can show the benefit of doing that education with them and that they have improved their view, they know where to go for resources on our website. So those are some just an example of some metrics that we measured through webinar as an example,
Laurie Winkelman 42:41
really cool. So how can farmers get involved, I
Liz Jalkiewicz 42:44
would say so just again, like specific to American dairy, but obviously, there’s tons of resources at the national level to at each of the state and regions website. So wherever you’re listening from today, check out your local state and region website, see if they have a sports nutrition specific tab on their website or search for sports nutrition. But American Dan, I’d say number one, go to American dairy calm, we have under the health and wellness tab, a sports nutrition specific page, or you can visit our blog at the dairy diary on our website and just sorted out by sports nutrition. So share our content with your local high school athletes, coaches, trainers, parents of these athletes, get them to see your content so that they can see the positive message around dairy when it comes to their child or their athletes nutrition and how dairy can play a positive role in that. On our social accounts. We share at least one piece of sports nutrition specific a month, if not more, but definitely one and just referring people to the site. It’s so consumer friendly, a lot of the SSR websites are consumer friendly, and so they can go there for accurate nutrition information.
Julie Ostrow 43:49
And I’ll put a plug in for reaching out to your dairy leadership, the farmer leadership within your own community ask question, that’s what’s going on. If you’re not involved in the leadership of the organization. Get involved, I will guarantee you that they would love to have your voice and hear your voice. So ask questions, say what is Midwest doing? What are they doing in my area, ask questions and get involved. Probably one of the best things you can do.
Laurie Winkelman 44:24
And maybe we can get the links to the different state and regional groups put up in the podcast notes so our listeners from other regions can find their specific one as well as us some of the cool resources that you guys have shared about ATA, Northeast and Midwest Dairy.
Julie Ostrow 44:41
You know, Liz and I have a whole bunch of colleagues back at our respective states and regions across the country. At DMI, National Dairy. There are lots of people like us working on your behalf on the farmers behalf so you’re in Good hands. And we do this every day. We love and believe in the power of dairy and of dairy farmers. So thank you for all you do.
Liz Jalkiewicz 45:08
I echo Julie’s sentiments and just say reach out anytime we’re here for you. We work for you. And if there’s a topic that’s missing or anything that needs to be addressed when it comes to sports nutrition, just let us know, reach out.
Joe Shockey 45:21
Thank you, Liz. Thank you, Julie. This has been a great discussion today. It’s been interesting to hear how sports nutrition can impact sales and drives trust and dairy. I’m Joe shocky. I’m a veterinarian and dairy farmer here in West Virginia, and Laurie Winckelmann. From a dairy farm family in Wisconsin. We’ve enjoyed hosting your Dairy Checkoff podcast. Thanks for joining us today. If you want to hear more about various issues affecting dairy community, subscribe to this podcast on your favorite podcast streaming service. Or you can check out our website Dairy Checkoffpodcast.com for future episodes. Until next time, have a great day. Have a great 2022
