Nourishing the world one glass at a time

Making every meal a feast with the highest-quality dairy products since 1918, Darigold is all about making premium dairy products. Darigold sees dairy as a means to nourish the world, and with this vision, the company is committed to producing dairy so delicious and nutritious, consumers can taste the difference.

"In countries with diet deficiencies, we are well-situated to provide milk as sustenance," says Jim Wegner, president and CEO. "As a company based in the United States, we have very high standards in food safety, assuring consumers of the quality of our products."

Delivering freshness from its farms to tables worldwide, Darigold is a subsidiary of farmer-owned co-operative Northwest Dairy Association (NDA). Five hundred farmers from the Pacific Northwest nurture the lush pastures and the cows to ensure sustainable milk production. Under their care, milk productivity on NDA member farms is among the highest worldwide.

NDA farmers send 8 billion pounds of milk annually to Darigold's 12 processing plants. The state-of-the-art factories manufacture a variety of dairy products such as fresh and pure fluid milk, cheese, butter, milk powder, sour cream, cottage cheese and creamers.

Darigold exports its products globally, with Asia as the single-biggest export market. With the limited supply of fresh milk in Asia, the company sees great opportunities in supplying the market with ultra-pasteurised fluid products, in addition to milk powders and cheese. It is in the process of expanding a plant in Oregon to increase ultra-pasteurised milk output and a plant in eastern Washington to produce infant-formula-quality milk powder ingredients.

"We sense that customers want higher-quality dairy products," Wegner says. "Many products in Asia are rehydrated powders that probably lack as good a flavour profile as our ultra-pasteurised milk. We see a market for that."