ART HOVEY/Lincoln Journal Star | Posted: Friday, May 4, 2007 7:00 pm
The dairy section at the HyVee Food Store at 70th and O in Lincoln is becoming almost as crowded as the parking lots around Memorial Stadium on a football Saturday.
A recent check turns up at least three basic brands of skim milk, 2 percent, and Vitamin D milk in gallon plastic jugs and smaller containers.
Shopping eyes also encounter one or more choices of lactose-free milk, soy milk, buttermilk, HyVee organic milk and the recently added Legacy milk in returnable glass bottles from the Legacy Dairy & Creamery at Hallam.
But wait, there’s more, an even newer niche player: Original Foods a2 Milk, produced by cows from the Prairieland Dairy Farm near Firth.
In addition to Legacy’s pitch of no hormones and source verification, the Lincoln leadership of Original Foods has joined New York-based IdeaSphere, Inc. and New Zealand business partner and patent holder A2 Milk Company to add another twist.
They’re promoting a2, so far sold exclusively at HyVee, as the only milk retailed in the U.S. that is certified to have at least 2 grams of a2 beta-casein protein per serving.
Original Foods launched itself into the retail sector in 2006 with Original Milk, an exclusive marketing agreement with Hy-Vee, and a real live cow on hand outside a supermarket for the occasion.
But as slingers of slang expressions are inclined to say, that was so last year.
“There are many dairies, more and more dairies, doing what we were doing with Original Milk,” said Tim Thietje, president of Original Foods. “There’s increased competition to do that kind of product, not only here, but in most other major localities.“
There are at least two advantages advancing the a2 joint venture. “One, we have a proprietary product, and two, because we have that, we’ve been able to interest HyVee in carrying this product throughout their system of food and drug stores“ Thietje said.
Grant Prentice, based in Chicago with the a2 Milk Company, said 25 percent of typical 100 Holstein cows produce a2 beta-casein protein. The rest produce a different kind or more than one kind.
But why should the consumer pay a premium price for this milk? What’s the advantage of drinking milk from Prairieland cows that have been selected and segregated at Firth because their genetics make them produce a2 beta-casein almost exclusively?
Prentice chooses his words carefully. “The most correct way to articulate that is a2 beta casein protein can digest differently,” he said.
Differently. Does that mean more easily? Does that mean there are special health benefits associated with a2 consumption?
Prentice and Thietje won’t go there. “Digest differently” is “the most appropriate way to talk about it at this stage,” Prentice said.
“In Australia, where this milk has been sold since 2003, there are some people who have expressed a preference for a2 milk,” he said. “But to be able to connect those things directly together” — digestion and preference — “is difficult at this point.“
Attempts to get that question answered at the University of Minnesota, one of the nation’s most prominent public settings for dairy science research, eventually led to Lloyd Metzger, formerly of the University of Minnesota and now an associate professor of dairy science at South Dakota State University in Brookings, S.D.
Metzger delivers something less than a ringing endorsement.
“This research is very much in the development stage,” he said, “and there’s not any kind of clarity in how ’digested differently’ provides any health benefits. And that would need to be addressed.“
More research might confirm such benefits as better blood pressure readings for a2 milk drinkers, Metzger said. Or it might not.
“I’m not saying they’re not on to something,” he said of the Nebraska-New Zealand connection, “but it would be nice to know what their basis is for saying ’digest differently’ is.“
The 17 HyVee stores in Lincoln, Omaha and Council Bluffs and others in the Midwest are certainly not the only settings for rapidly multiplying choices among milk drinkers.
But dairy producer Doug Nuttelman of Stromsburg prefers to keep his milk flowing into more conventional channels.
“To me, it makes it really confusing,” Nuttelman said of the array of options. “But, I guess the niche markets, there are probably more educated buyers out there and, to them, it will mean something.“
To most buyers, at least in Nuttelman’s opinion, it probably won’t.
Reach Art Hovey at 523-4949 or at ahovey@alltel.net