Tuscaloosa City Schools Anticipating Milk Shortage As Producer Closes

TUSCALOOSA, AL — Tuscaloosa City Schools on Thursday notified parents that it is anticipating a milk shortage that will impact the school system beginning at the end of September.

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The announcement comes following news that Borden Dairy plants in Dothan and Hattiesburg, Mississippi will close at the end of next month. The company said in a statement it could “no longer support continued production" at the two plants and would cease operations no later than Sept. 30.

As TCS pointed out, citing data from the Alabama State Department of Education’s Child Nutrition Program, Borden produces most of the 736,000 half pint cartons of milk consumed by roughly 422,000 students across Alabama each week.

What more, Tuscaloosa City Schools said its schools go through "approximately 35,000 of the half pint cartons per week alone."

"The Tuscaloosa City Schools’ [Child Nutritional Program] department is currently looking into other options in terms of milk," TCS CNP Director Billy Nichols said in a statement on Thursday. "Unfortunately, there are not any local dairy producers who can immediately replace the fresh supply that Borden was producing."

TCS then said The United States Department of Agriculture has been notified of the dairy closures and provided waivers to school districts to support them until a solution to the shortage can be found.

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