Podcasts about Fonterra

Fonterra’s managing director of co-operative affairs comments on last night’s “steady as she goes” GDT Auction. In light of the dramatically increased volumes being offered, it was pleasing to see prices supported (Index +0.1%). The improved Chinese demand underlined full cream levels especially.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Fonterra’s chief financial officer comments on last night’s positive GDT Auction (up 1.5%, WMP +1.6%, SMP +2.8%).See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

The next decade of global dairy growth may look very different from the last one. For years, much of the world's additional milk came from pasture-based systems. New Zealand added acres. Production expanded across parts of South America, Australia and Europe. But those regions are not growing the way they once did. Today, the next unit of milk is increasingly coming from grain-fed systems. That shift could put the U.S. in the driver's seat for global dairy markets over the next 5 to 10 years. In this episode of The Milk Check, host Ted Jacoby III and the Jacoby team are joined by Scott Briggs of Bridgecape Commodities. We dive into: Why marginal milk growth is shifting from grass-fed to grain-fed systems What environmental policy and structural inefficiencies mean for European milk production Why China is shifting from building milk supply to creating higher-value dairy products Why the U.S. will need to become a more consistent exporter of butterfat Plus, beef income has helped support dairy farm margins and encouraged producers to breed more cows to beef. What happens if beef prices fall? The cows are ready. The plants are being built. What's next for U.S. dairy? Listen to The Milk Check episode 102: Who Wins the Next Decade of Milk Production? Also available on Amazon Music, Apple Podcasts, Spotify, and YouTube. Got questions? We'd love to hear them. Submit below, and we might answer it on the show. Ask The Milk Check Intro commercial [Text not included.] Ted Jacoby III: Coming up on the Milk Check. Ted Jacoby III: You’ve got the U.S. dairy industry now in a position where even the worst-case scenario continues to be a threat for Europe or the rest of the world from a milk supply standpoint. Ted Jacoby III: Welcome to the Milk Check from T.C. Jacoby & Co., your complete guide to dairy markets, from the milking parlor to the supermarket shelf. I’m Ted Jacoby. Let’s dive in. This week, we are excited to have Scott Briggs from Bridgecape Commodities joining us. Scott lives in Australia and really understands what’s going on with dairy markets on that side of the pond. Scott, thank you so much for joining us. We’re excited to have you. Why don’t we start by having you tell everybody a little bit about yourself? Scott Briggs: Thanks very much for the intro, Ted. I’m Scott Briggs, Bridgecape Commodities, based down in Melbourne, Australia and work with a number of Asian and Oceanic consumers to try and understand global dairy markets and try and help them risk manage. Thanks very much for the opportunity to be a part of the podcast. Ted Jacoby III: Scott, thanks for joining us. We’re really excited to have you. We’re gonna have a little bit of a debate: How do U.S. dairy production costs compare to those in New Zealand, Europe, and China today? Do we think the U.S. is building a lasting competitive advantage? And what does that mean for the global dairy market over the next five years? Scott, I’ll start with you. You’re based down under. Do you think the U.S. Is developing a competitive advantage, or do you think New Zealand will continue to be in the driver’s seat? Scott Briggs: It’s a very big topic Ted, but I think the short answer is that yeah, the U.S. is really in a great position to drive global dairy markets over the next 5 to 10 years. One of the major things that’s changed probably since about 2015, we’ve been in a transition period where the marginal milk growth is not coming from a grass-fed system anymore, it’s coming from a grain-fed system. Between 2000 when a lot of global dairy markets started to deregulate and we had falling trade controls and those sorts of things, quotas in the EU eventually coming off, between 2000 and 2015, the marginal milk growth was really coming from a grass-fed system, be it New Zealand growing the number of acres that it planted or the number of acres that it farmed. Places like Uruguay or southern Brazil or Argentina growing quite strongly and other parts of Europe and Australia as well. So that was the driver of the growth, and that’s why we saw that volatility in global dairy markets driving back towards a grass-fed cost of production. But since then, those places have stopped growing and really the next unit of growth or the next liter of growth comes from grains and ultimately that does mean that the U.S. is in a great position to respond to the milk production needs of the world. At the end of the day, you’ve got the greatest exportable surplus of grains and you’ve got a fantastic platform to grow from. That’s the 10,000-foot view of why the U.S. is in the box seat. Ted Jacoby III: You mentioned that even New Zealand is starting to go towards a grain-based system. Could you tell me a little bit more about that? Scott Briggs: I would say that’s pretty incipient, Ted, but there’s certainly steps that are being taken in New Zealand that seem to mirror what Australia’s been doing for probably the last five to 10 years. You have a marginal cost of production that is grain-fed and it’s being led by the U.S. At the moment, if we looked at the margins in the U.S. for a dairy farmer, they’re pretty good given your beef situation. But if you were to remove that beef situation or that beef revenue, you’re probably at a pretty low income over feed cost. But that’s still a highly profitable milk price for a grass-fed system. And a lot of the fixed costs are already being paid off, be it the farmer’s labor the equipment on the farm all of those overheads, they’re already being paid off by a pasture fed system. So, there’s a huge marginal return for that extra liter of milk that comes out of a pasture fed system. If you look at the steps that have occurred in Australia and that are probably starting to come to New Zealand, it is a lot more shared housing in wetter areas, feed pads, dry feed pads. It's certainly not moving to the barn fed system that the States has got. More multiple calvers, if you like, to flatten out that milk curve. A lot more maize silage production, which just stores that little bit better and gives you more dry matter per acre as well. It’s these kind of marginal steps which have occurred a lot in Australia or even in some of our more grass-fed areas, and that are starting to occur in New Zealand. And some of the incentives that are being given, market-wise, in New Zealand to produce that shoulder milk or that additional milk are starting to respond with additional investment on farm. Ted Jacoby III: So, is maybe another way to put it that core pasture-based part of New Zealand dairy farming continues to be very profitable, but any marginal increase in milk production that would come from New Zealand, the cost of that marginal increase is probably the same or more likely probably less than the same marginal increase in milk production in the U.S.? Scott Briggs: Look, I would say that the marginal cost of production out of the States is pretty good. If you think that you’ve already got all the infrastructure paid for and it’s really just an additional growth there. But I think it’s more so the profit margins that sit in a pasture-fed system in New Zealand allow for that investment to try and get that little bit of extra milk as well. So, I wouldn’t say either or are better placed. It’s just that we do have a lot of low-hanging fruit in Oceania, if you like, to start moving into that kind of system. Ted Jacoby III: That makes sense. That makes sense. Mike Brown (2): One thing I think about New Zealand and why the system is the way it has been historically has been your cost of concentrates or grains hasn’t always been as competitive. You lead world price in a lot of cases, and your location makes you very competitive. Your dairymen have more room to pay some of those higher costs for that marginal production. So my question is the strong world price has a fair amount to do, obviously , with everybody’s growth, but in your case when you look at that difference in marginal cost versus that pasture based cost, are you more sensitive to that marginal change in price than maybe some other markets just simply because your feed costs are higher? Scott Briggs: Let’s have a look at world milk prices at the moment. The U.S. at $17 a counterweight, if you like, $16.50, $17 a counterweight. That’s low on your range. On the New Zealand numbers, that’s coming out at a $9.50 dollars per kilo in New Zealand dollars, which is a historically pretty high milk price. So, they do have that ability to just bring in PKE exports. One of the major sources of additional feed or additional milk growth in New Zealand is this palm kernel expeller which comes off of the palm kernel crushing. It’s kinda like soybean meal, if you like that they bring in from Indonesia and other palm kernel or palm crushing countries. Fonterra had placed limits on that for a long period of time because it was affecting the fat composition of the milk. Once they removed those limits, PKE imports went up 20% or 30% almost in one or two years. The last two seasons, New Zealand milk growth has been about 4% or 5% this year, and probably 2% or 3% the year before, so 6 or 7%. Nearly a third to a half of that has come from the additional energy that’s coming in the PKE. So it’s having a huge marginal impact on their growth, and it’s coming at a pretty low cost ’cause it’s a low-cost feed source. So, I think, Mike, going back to your question, they have that ability to grow because there’s such a lot of low-hanging fruit between that grass-fed cost of production, which is already paying for their farm, and the milk price that they’re getting paid, which is actually a marginal cost of production out of the U.S. Mike Brown (2): What kind of world fat price might change their incentive on PKE? We’re seeing a little bit of that here because it’s very expensive here, and people look at their marginal return. It isn’t, of course, near what it was when fat was $2.50. Do you think, depending where that world market settles, will that change the incentive to use PKE? ‘Cause in our case, it’s fat production is the real gain that you get compared to other alternative rations we feed. Scott Briggs: I think it’s seen more as just a bulk source of feed and source of energy- to get the cow up early in the season, Mike, and peak it as high as possible, and then to keep going on the shoulder. It’s a milk solids game rather than a tweak the fat percentage game. At $9.50 they’ll be feeding it. Mike Brown (2): Yes. Scott Briggs: $9.50 a kilo of milk solids they’ll be feeding it. Mike Brown (2): Oh, yes. Yeah. I would be feeding it here, too. Yeah. At that price for sure. Yeah. Ted Jacoby III: My thoughts immediately go to Europe. The U.S. is well-positioned for growth. New Zealand is building off a very profitable base, which insulates them and puts them in a very good position of at least maintaining their position in the global market. Where does that put Europe? Scott Briggs: Europe is an interesting situation where realistically I think that they’re gonna struggle for the main drivers of additional milk production. They seem to be struggling to add any additional land at a reasonable cost, whether it be to the feed base or to the dairy base. That’s obviously being driven by environmental policy, which is very different in Europe than it is say in the U.S. or even Latin America. So I think that they’re gonna struggle at that policy level to be able to keep driving forward. The other thing that does sit within Europe is that we’re only 10 years removed from quota coming off, and so we’re still in that process of losing milk production where we should in the more marginal areas, or from the smaller farms, or from the more marginal land, and trying to drive it into places like Germany or the Netherlands. And so whenever you’ve got a core base of pretty uneconomic sticky milk, it takes a fairly heavy price response to drive change in those farms. So down at the lowish milk prices that we’ve got globally at the moment and I say, I’m happy to debate that point. I think we’re at pretty low milk prices on the range since the end of COVID, particularly with the low feed prices. Where we are at the bottom of the price range, you’re gonna still struggle to get some of these European guys out given the subsidies that they’ve got. But that also means you’re not driving efficiency back into the system. So it feels to me like Europe’s gonna really struggle to meet the global needs and be a quick mover like the States has been. Probably the call-out on that one to me would be Russia. They’ve got probably huge settings if they wanted Russia and the Stans to really grow into dairy production. But it’s not gonna be something that’s being done for the rest of the world. I think it’s gonna be getting done for their part of the world and for China. Ted Jacoby III: Speaking of Eastern Europe, do you think Poland still has a lot of room to grow as well? Scott Briggs: I wouldn’t know the specific micro settings of Poland. It does seem like they are growing pretty well. If you look at the investments that are going into some of the Stans, eventually Ukraine and some of the other parts of the former Eastern Bloc, if you like, it does seem like there’s a lot of investment in Belarus still. It does seem like there’s a lot of investment going in there to help feed parts of the world that longer-term probably aren’t gonna be getting fed by the U.S. Ted Jacoby III: That makes sense to me. With all these different factors, what about China? China’s in a pretty interesting spot from a milk production standpoint. They really increased their milk production three or four years ago, and then more or less stabilized it. Where is their cost of production and where does China go from here? Scott Briggs: Probably the first point to make is that we’ve all learned not to bet against China on dairy production in the last four or five years on milk production in particular. That’s been an incredible rise. And I think the second thing is that lesson to me is then, don’t bet against them and what they might be able to do with the quality of the product, and the investments that they’re making in manufacturing capacity now. There’s a huge push from China to value add, particularly on the protein side, and to then try and drive that down in sales into Southeast Asia and other parts of the world. They’ve obviously got a huge domestic market, but when it comes to starting to grow into things like processed cheese or fat exports or even micellar casein exports and MPC exports, that’s where I think that their next push is gonna be, is trying to move out anything that they don’t need domestically. So it’s not just gonna be bulk whole milk powder, which has been the story of the last two or three years. The structural issue that they’ve got is that their population versus their arable land is just huge. That’s a long-term limiter, if you like, for how much you can push into exports. Ultimately, as their productivity grows and their incomes grow, they’ll be consuming more dairy themselves. The steps that we’ve seen the last four or five years were really about shoring up domestic milk capability so that they weren’t a victim of world markets, and then now they’re trying to value add that milk. They’ve learned the lesson that you don’t grow milk but not grow factories, and they’ve learned the lesson that you don’t grow demand without growing milk. The policy now is, let’s do step changes as productivity rises to drive income rises. I think that they’re gonna be putting a push on certain functional products into Asia But I don’t think that they’re necessarily in a place to be the driver of global milk production because ultimately their cost of production, going back to where you started, Ted, is higher, and it’s structurally higher because of the fact that they just don’t have enough arable land for the population that they’ve got. Ted Jacoby III: But with China doing that and really trying to expand into value add and even trying to export, I gotta believe that’s causing Fonterra and the other New Zealand exporters to really shift their export strategy. What’s happening there? Scott Briggs: When you look at Fonterra, their stated strategy is to basically be a skim protein and fat company. They have recognized that the days of whole milk powder are limited. China went through a period where they went from 500,000 tons of imports pre-COVID to 800,000, and now they’re back down to 500,000 again. They’ve really gone through that boom and during that period, Fonterra’s basically said, “We need to move out of whole milk powder and move back into being a skim and fat company.” And when I say a skim and fat company, a skim protein and fat company. And so, we have seen them push 50 to 70,000 tons more skim into Southeast Asia. But what they’re now starting to do is to value add that skim, similar to what the U.S. is doing: putting on more ultrafiltration in front of dryers, ’cause that’s the highest marginal investment that you can do. Starting to do more MPCs, starting to do more value add on the fat side, as well. There’s been some huge investments in UHT cream which are gonna be going ahead or have already gone ahead and are being launched for this year, which draws fat away from butter and AMF. Overall, their stated strategy is to be a nutrition and food service company. Nutrition: protein-heavy products. Food service: fat-heavy products. And so they’re moving away from that whole milk powder. I think that the next stage for them is to try and drive those two sorts of products into Southeast Asia. Because China itself is already quite a big market for those sorts of products and is probably screaming out for, “How do we not use WPC and WPI?” ‘Cause that’s the highest priced protein in the world right now. So how do we move away from that? I think they’re also trying to help Southeast Asia grow protein as a category. Ted Jacoby III: But based on what you said of China’s strategy, it almost sounds like it means China and New Zealand are going head-to-head in that market in Southeast Asia. Scott Briggs: Yeah. Yeah. I think- And- And look, that’s a 5 to 10-year view. We’re already seeing traditional Fonterra markets or New Zealand markets, Open Country Dairy’s obviously nearly 20% of the market down there now, as well, and are making their own steps towards value-adding fat. So that’s always one to keep in mind. We’re certainly seeing a competition of powder flows and functional product flows from China, including fat, laminated fat, pastry butter, those sorts of things, coming into Southeast Asian markets that were traditionally New Zealand-dominated markets. Diego Carvallo: Going back to China’s milk production, a lot of rumors about a disease in the northwest of China hand, foot, and mouth. Very little information. We have several customers that have asked about it. Without going down the rabbit hole, is there any update in that regards? Scott Briggs: Super important if it were to be a big story. I think that the likelihood of it being a massive story is low at the moment from what I’ve seen at least. The key thing to watch for me in China is always the spot milk price. They’ve got a fantastic not that it’s particularly visible, but they do have a huge trade of liquid milk market between different zones and between companies in specific zones. It’s a little bit like your plus/minus to the Class III. So that spot milk price to me is always the one which tells you: are they having any problems? And it does seem to me like the containment strategy was quite effective early on. Lock down the zones, stop the movement of the cattle. So yeah, it doesn’t look like it, but, it’s a bit of a black box. Diego Carvallo: So, we don’t expect a long-term impact to their production as of right now? Scott Briggs: Not at this stage, but that could change tomorrow. Ted Jacoby III: Everybody, we will be right back after these messages. Diego Carvallo: I’m Diego Carballo with T.C. Jacoby & Co.. T.C. Jacoby & Co. specializes in international dairy markets. For new customers that haven’t done business with Jacoby, I would tell them that we can provide them with many of the powders, dairy products that they consume, not only with the physical product, but we can also help them mitigate their risk. We know dairy. We know the main players. We know the main providers for the whole value chain. We are one of the strongest players in the U.S. market because we have contact all the way from the farmer moving the liquid milk all the way to the end users that buy the end products. I am Diego Carballo with T.C. Jacoby & Co., and we bring dairy to the world. Ted Jacoby III: Josh, I’m gonna put you on the spot. Is the U.S. gonna continue to increase our exports? And if so, who do we increase those exports at the expense of? How is that gonna play out? Josh White: Yes. We’re going to absolutely continue to increase our exports. The most obvious area is where there’s gonna be a need, and that’s fat, at the moment. It’s pretty well-noted that we’ve invested heavily in cheese production, boy, if those new cheese process facilities are running at the moment, they’re happy to have a co-product in whey proteins. Things are looking pretty good at the moment. As a result of that, we’re assuming that anybody who can produce cheese or process cheese is trying to process just as much as they possibly can. As a result of that, it seems pretty eminent that the U.S. will continue to have available cheese for the global consumer. Now we’ll take a look at the protein side. One of the expected results of this protein movement in the U.S., and now again, I wanna clarify this movement because I think there’s a lot of chatter about GLP-1 being the main driver, and I would almost view that as just a catalyst and a reason why the U.S. market might be leading in protein consumption. ‘Cause if you look around the world, this is a health and wellness trend that is not exclusive to the United States, not exclusive to Europe. It’s happening everywhere. We receive inquiries from all over the world, including import regions, for protein. Given the limitation on whey protein availability, one would assume that we’re gonna see quite a migration to milk proteins, and Scott did a great job of alluding to that earlier. We’re finding different ways of concentrating protein and delivering it to the consumer. The result of that, fat’s going to come along with it. I’ve listened to Gus, Mike and the team talk fairly openly about the incredible improvements in components over the past several years from the U.S. dairymen. Scott alluded to component growth in other parts of the world as well. We’re going to have surplus fat, and there’s going to be extra fat beyond what the U.S. consumer can take in, and as a result of that, we’re going to be hungry to capture market share in the global market. Now, you ask, “At whose expense?” And that’s a loaded question in some ways because I think there’s two things going on. I also think fat consumption globally is increasing, maybe not at the rate protein is and maybe not as popular right now, but if you look, ever since the early 2000s when we made this paradigm shift in the U.S. to moving away from the old food pyramid model and moving into this clean label, healthy consumable products, fat no longer was the enemy, and it seems like ever since that happened, the world has also agreed, and we’ve continued to see more clean label dairy fat being consumed per capita globally. So, two things will happen. One is the U.S., we’re in position to grow our milk production more quickly than anywhere else in the world. We have the infrastructure, currently, we have the economics to do that, and we might outpace that fat consumption growth globally. Which means then, yes, we will have to capture some market share. And from who? It, it’s either going to be Europe or Oceania, and I think that’s a seasonal thing. I don’t know that I would point to either single market as being the loser in that, other than that the dairy support and economic situation and the outlook for dairy growth in Europe seems to have more headwinds than the rest of the world. One would assume that they’re a bit more vulnerable, right now, to the U.S. capturing market share. Ted Jacoby III: Joe, what about fat? Joe Maixner: Josh summed it up pretty clearly. We’re going to have to continue to be a net exporter of fat. We’re gonna continue to add fat into our system with all of these high protein demand and these components that just continue to creep higher and higher. We’re not going to consume everything that we can supply. We will have to be a net exporter of fat moving forward until either the supply structurally shifts or we find a different way to utilize it. I agree with Josh and Scott that it’s going to be seasonal dependent on whose expense it comes at because I think that our fat market, our butter market specifically, is going the direction that cheese has gone over the past 15 years, where it becomes almost a cyclical market. We’ll be really competitive, we’ll get a lot of exports on the books, we’ll clean up our inventories, and then our pricing will spike, we will not be competitive on exports for a while, which will develop this surplus of domestic inventory and force us to depress pricing again and go back into the export markets. Josh White: We have a U.S. bias obviously, as we’re looking at the world. The one limitation to U.S. capturing fat market share is the reputation of U.S. fat being quite a bit different. Our commodity butter is an 80% salted butter. Our packaging is different. The visual appearance of our product is different. The flavor profile of our product is a bit different. Up until now, the opportunity for us to capture market share has happened largely in the processing sector as an ingredient to make something else. As of late, we’re starting to realize a little bit more of a win in, say, food service applications in developing markets and other things. From your perspective, how close is the U.S. to penetrating into the food service or retail business in import regions for butterfat? Scott Briggs: Yeah. It’s a good question. I think there’s two parts to that answer. The first is that you break down trade barriers slowly, but it happens. It’s been happening since the start of trade, right?  You know, I do think that there’s the ability to continue educating the consumer to get them comfortable with the product, the appearance of the product. I think I said that to Joe once: U.S. butter, it’s not terrible. It’s a great tagline. But I’m not a marketing guy. It will continue to gain acceptance, I think, Josh. I think the second thing to recognize is that with Fonterra, so New Zealand, trying to put so much fat into food service applications, I think for the point of educating, as you say, what does that mean in Asia and China? It’s not necessarily just butter. UHT cream is just this massive category which keeps on growing in Asia. Asia’s not this singular thing. Like they’re all sub-markets. But as a generalization, bakery is huge through a lot of Southeast Asia China itself. If you travel there, it’s cakes, it’s pastries, it’s a hell of a lot of really nice product. It’s seen as a luxury good if you like and through the supermarkets and convenience stores and everything like that. That’s a huge sector which needs a more functional application. There’s a lot of growth in there. That’s actually leaving behind ingredient markets for U.S. fat, whether that be in Australia or whether that be into Southeast Asia or the Middle East. So that is actually to me, probably the lowest hanging fruit, and it’s what you’ve already seen. So it’s not like you need to necessarily change the spec immediately to go for these applications. It can be just as easily going for what’s been left behind by New Zealand. Just one point that I’d make about whose market share is the U.S. gonna take on certain products? The European milk growth in late last year really does mask the fact that we probably still need U.S. butterfat exports to balance the world market. If you were to take the 100,000 excess tons that Europe made in the second half of last year out of the market, say that was unsustainable milk growth for a period of time, once we eat through that stock, we’ve taken a lot of the U.S. growth, if you like. We’ve absorbed a lot of that growth in what you’ve made, and we needed it. So I do think that we’re going through a process of still eating through those European stocks overall, and that glut that we had, which was driven by two years of fantastically high milk prices. But once we get through that, the global consumer is buying $5,000 butter, and they’re buying $3,000 skim. And that is a price level that’s comfortable in a lot of the world. Mideast is obviously going through a few lumps right now, so we may have some problems on demand in the next six months. But once we get through that and, hopefully the conflict there is over and they return to some kind of growth, we do get to a position where we probably need U.S. fat in the world market. Mike, you made the comment about how well the U.S. farmer is now not feeding for fat, and it does seem like some of that fat component growth at least is slowing. Do you see responsiveness to fat prices significantly, and how can that change the U.S. fat balance of being a reliable or necessary exporter? Mike Brown (2): As far as producer decisions, I’ve had some conversations, particularly with cheese plants, who are seeing some changes and talking with their producers. And some are making some adjustment to ration changing sources, and what those sources are finding is what we’re seeing in the milk supply, protein remains relatively strong and still grows. Fat has slowed down a bit, and most of it is PKE. That seems to be the change. Talking with producers, I had a good conversation, actually, last fall with a very high producing Jersey herd who said that if fat gets below about $1.70, it doesn’t really make sense for him to feed PKE anymore because he isn’t getting enough return from it. I think there’s probably some doing that. Is it broad? I think when the U.S. cows are milking so well, they’re reluctant to make a lot of ration changes that might slow things down. But we’re seeing somewhat on the margin. Will it solve the problem? No, because it’s genetics. It’s the genomics, our selection for fat. There’s so much variability in fat genetics within cattle, particularly Holsteins, that they’ve been able to make huge progress, and of course that’s permanent. So I expect that fat will continue to stay high. So, will we see some moderate fluctuations from time to time? Sure. That market will, I think, have some effect, particularly since they’ve gotten so high. Will our trend change? No. We’ll continue to improve in fat and in protein with time just because genetic selection in the U.S., particularly with sexed semen and genomics, has just gotten so intense that I don’t see that changing. The rate of gain will slow because the base population is higher versus the sires that are being used, but that will continue. We may slow down. We’re not gonna turn around and go the other way. Ted Jacoby III: Awesome. Thanks, Mike. Jacob Menge: I was gonna stir the pot a bit and almost take the other side by saying I have a degree in economics, so I succumb to liking to pretend that free trade is how everything works in the world. And it doesn’t. And I think we’re pretty clearly going down this path of almost a bifurcated world of trade relationships. And I really think it would be a mistake to ignore that moving forward, especially with Russia potentially being able to supply China in the future. We’re almost taking for granted that everyone is gonna buy from the most efficient producer in the world, and we’re really going into this kind of tumultuous geopolitical landscape that it feels like we’re probably ignoring. I don’t think that changes the fact that the U.S. is still gonna have to export. We’re producing more than we’re gonna consume. We’re not gonna let the product rot. We’re probably not gonna shut down all these nice facilities we just built. But it does make me question what price we are going to be getting when we go to export the products. What happens to the basis on those export sales? There’s a big geopolitical issue when it comes to a lot of the analysis we’ve just been doing. Scott Briggs: How much of the cake is baked? How much growth are we guaranteed to see on U.S. milk supply in the next two to three years, and cheese supply, just as a function of these investments that have already been made? How much of the world trade has already bifurcated? China’s getting it from New Zealand. Okay, that could break. I could see that breaking. I could see the Middle East possibly breaking, like you’re already seeing Iran getting certain product from Belarus or you already seen China get part of it. So there could be massive breakages in there, you’re right. The challenge is if we were to stop trading between Russia, the ‘Stans, and China, if that became one zone and we all became the other zone, like the two biggest linkages are the Middle East and New Zealand, and you probably do flood the market if you were to stop that. Who would get hurt in that scenario? It’s probably Europe. It’s Gonna be a race to the bottom to try and kill some of the highest cost milk production. Yeah, how much of the cake is baked? Ted Jacoby III: I would say it is pretty baked. But I think of it more in terms of between the current trends we’re seeing and how sticky we suspect they are from a breeding-to-beef standpoint, specifically cattle supply, beef cattle supply, and being able to continue to supply the beef market with beef, I think we’re gonna continue to see some really good returns to dairy farmers breeding to beef, which means they are going to resist and be pretty resistant even when the milk price is low to reducing the number of cows in the U.S. That’s number one. That puts in a really hard floor. In addition to that, those dairy farmers, especially the really big ones, are making really good money when you add the beef income on top of the milk income, and they’re looking to continue to expand as a result. So, in terms of the capacity that’s already added, they’re gonna fill it up. In terms of the additional capacity, which, let’s just put it this way: Over the last two to three years, we’ve had a lot of new capacity. Over the next couple of years, we will continue to have additional capacity added, but at a lower rate than what we just saw, but it’s all gonna get filled up. I don’t think we’re gonna have a problem over the next three to five years filling the capacity that we build because I think that the income situation for the dairy farmer in the U.S., it’s just in a really good spot. Even if you take, what’s our worst-case scenario from a milk revenue standpoint? Whey protein prices collapse. We produce so much milk that butter prices stay low, nonfat prices stay low, cheese prices stay low. All that means is we’re just gonna be that much more competitive in the global market, and I think our overproduction is probably gonna hurt Europe more than it’s actually gonna hurt the U.S. Josh White: I’ll just maybe add to it that, the most obvious way that the U.S. has invested is to add a lot of cheese processing capacity over the past few years, massive investments. People are well aware of it. But the aggregate of all of the incremental expansions and all of that has been really significant as well. It feels almost imminent right now that we were already investing in dairy growth before the beef on farm income reached a level that it’s at today, and it just doesn’t feel like that’s going to change any time in the near future. And as a result of that, it only maintains or accelerates that desire to make more milk. We were having conversations 24 months ago about how would we have the heifers to grow the herd? How would we do this? We found a way to grow the herd. The component growth outperformed expectations, and it’s only been more consistently profitable because the revenue stream’s been spread across more things. So we’re gonna have milk, and if we’re gonna have milk, we’re going to figure out a way to process that milk. And so far, there must have been some really good foresight to do that and build all of this cheese processing capacity to absorb it up till now, and we’ve got a little runway left to continue to fill them up. But there’s conversations at every major place about how do we extend our put-through and extend our yield by shipping more condensed skim, by processing more UF milk products, by… I can go on and on. I don’t know if it’s exactly what you were asking, but are we done in investing in our ability to process more milk? I don’t believe so. The next move had to have already been thought about and has to be under construction. We’re years out from the one after that. I think there’s plenty that are thinking about the next move. Mike Brown (2): It’s kinda like the beef has created this amazing revenue stream for dairy producers in the U.S., and our use of sexed semen and beef selection has just improved that. Same with whey proteins and plant profitability. With these very high whey protein isolate and whey protein concentrate prices, even at a 70-cent whey market, your margins on your whey proteins are very high, which gives those plants a little more room to grow. But I think the other part is: we’ve always talked about growth in cheese, the milk proteins are growing, too, and as whey protein prices get higher, manufacturers and product developers are figuring out ways to use lower-priced dairy protein alternatives, and that market’s gonna grow as well. How much milk do we have left to dry into whey? How much milk are we gonna have left to dry into powder if those markets continue to grow? We don’t think they’re done yet. We think that growth is there. Will these prices stay where they are forever? Probably not, but the demand seems to be continuing to grow. Part of it isn’t will we grow our plants, it’s also what will we be making in those plants? Are we gonna be making more focus on other protein products than just cheese? Ted Jacoby III: I think one of the most ironic things about milk production in the U.S. right now is the fact that the biggest danger, the thing that would hurt the dairy farmer the most right now, is actually not milk cost. It’s beef price. What would happen if the beef price collapses to the point where breeding the beef is no longer profitable? We’re going to double the amount of dairy heifers we start producing. You know how that plays out? That plays out by, right now the number of lactations out of a cow has gone from two to three to four, which is decreasing the rate of increase of the components in the milk because you’re turning over a smaller percentage of your herd every year. All you’re gonna do is speed that up. So maybe our milk production plateaus or even drops a little bit, but the components in the milk increase will speed up as a result. You’ve got the U.S. dairy industry now in a position where even the worst-case scenario continues to be a threat for Europe or the rest of the world from a milk supply standpoint. Mike Brown (2): We look at the percentage of milk in the U.S. that is now produced by these extremely efficient, very well-managed, very well-leveraged herds, and so our susceptibility is less. It’s kinda like we’re going through a heat wave right now, Scott, and everybody says, “What’s that gonna do to milk?” A whole lot less than it used to because of the controlled environments of our modern barns. We’ve done a lot and kinda like I think in a lot of industries, we’ve had some good profitability, people have made investments for the long term. And when you make big investments for the long term, you don’t usually turn around. You’re committed to being in the business. I think the biggest thing for us, in my mind, is for years we’ve been looking at the whey and dry milk markets, exports are a huge part of those sales. Cheese is growing, and we’ve reached a point with cheese where those export sales are becoming more and more important, and so how do we sustain them over time? What do we need to do? I think a good example, Joe’s been working a lot with our opportunities in butter over the last few years and working with folks that we work with and what do I need to make to take best advantage of those export markets? We’ll continue to do that as well. We’re just thinking a lot more world demand than just, “I need to make a 40-pound block of cheddar and who will buy it?” We’re trying to think a little harder than that now. Scott Briggs: Mike, you touched on if we’d had the milk production growth that we’ve had in the last two years 10 years ago, we would’ve wiped out certain pieces of milk production around the world. The market would not have absorbed that level of additional product. Now, we certainly had a period in October, November, December last year, where things got uneconomic in certain part of the world, and we didn’t last. Because ultimately, the demand shone through and, having listened to the podcast, protein demand and that protein story is a huge part of that in the States. That, to me, is a trend that’s really only beginning around a lot of the other parts of the world. It can go underestimated from your side of the world. You guys are the vanguard in that. You’re the leaders in it. You’ve got the category. China’s got a great category in this area and is making some huge investments in it. But, we’ve just seen here in Australia and in Southeast Asia some massive investments from European companies into cottage cheese, into ready-to-drink categories with the principal idea of exporting them to Asia. And, that growth model into developing markets is always put a high price product in there that’s branded from a developed market, and then grow the category with the local champion. You get an imported product, it looks sexy and it looks great, and it’s like a luxury product, and then you grow the category by producing a lower price point product to try and then get the local population really going for it. And so that’s just started. The other thing that’s really hot in different parts of Asia is, funnily enough, processed cheese for food service. It’s a really quickly growing category. It’s a category that gets a lot of interest. We’ve spent a lot of time on the point of does the U.S. have a competitive advantage for supply, in this kind of changing world. I think one of the biggest pieces of competitive advantage that the States has is its ability to grow an export pathway. It’s a mindset; it’s a trade infrastructure, as well, with government relations and everything like that allows you to grow into world markets in a way that probably a lot of other places don’t have. If we’ve got a growing demand, and I made this point before, we might see a few lumps here, mainly because of the Middle East, right? The Middle East looks a little bit overbought, looks a little bit quiet. Southeast Asia’s having a few little hiccups with changes in Indonesia and some of their currency devaluation, like these sort of short-term issues. But longer term, it’s very comfortable for a Southeast Asian consumer buying $2,800 to $3,200 skim and $5,000 butter. These are price points that work now, which never worked before, that’s the growth price point now. I do think that we’re going to have a situation where the world market is gonna be the next engine for some of the growth in protein demand and fat demand as well. Tristan Suellentrop: Scott, being based in Australia, I’d be interested to hear your perspective on the potential super El Niño that was confirmed this week. How does that factor into your outlook for dairy production in Oceania over the next year or two? And how concerned should producers in Australia and New Zealand be if it develops as forecasted? Scott Briggs: So it’s a very detailed topic. The El Niño indicator that everybody looks at is the Southern Oscillation Index, which is screaming El Niño at the moment. The reality is that what impacts Australia and New Zealand is not just the El Niño. It can be a major impact, but we’ve also had years where it has had no impact, and probably even at a similar level of El Niño indicator. And the reason for that is the El Niño obviously talks about what’s happening out in between South America and Asia, so that pressure, but our weather system, particularly in our dairy regions, is just as impacted by how much moisture is exiting Antarctica and moving north, into the southern parts of Australia, which are our heavy dairy regions, and also into New Zealand. The other weather system that impacts our dairy production during spring and our moisture levels is how much tropical cyclone activity is actually exiting the Pacific Islands and moving down into the North Island of New Zealand, which really doesn’t have a lot to do with El Niño either. The key point is that, right now El Niño, yeah, it’s a real phenomenon, but it’s not the only thing that’s gonna impact Oceania. when you look back at the history, which we have, some years it’s a really important thing, and other years you can have a fantastic spring in what seems to be an El Niño year. The other point that I’d make is that we have fantastic moisture right now. We’re getting huge rainfalls through Australia particularly, but also in New Zealand, which are really recharging things over winter. Economics would also mean that we’ve all got a fair bit of silage buffered away from the last 12 months of good weather. So I don’t think, at this stage, we’re seeing anything that’s like a huge impact on Oceanic dairy, but it’s very early. The thing that we’re all gonna need to watch out for is how much does it rain, particularly in New Zealand in December. New Zealand in December, January, that’s really when we have to start looking at what might happen. Ted Jacoby III: Cool. All right. Scott, this was a fantastic discussion. Thank you so much for joining us. Really appreciate your insight and your expertise in what’s going on the other side of the pond. Thank you.  Thank you. Lockhart, thank you very much. Cheers, guys. Next time on The Milk Check. Will Loux: The U.S. exports as we go forward here over the next few years is at a crossroad. Do we swing back to balancing to milk fat, which would mean we’re probably short of protein? Or do we start balancing to protein, which means we’re gonna need to find homes for a heck of a lot more cheese and butter. Ted Jacoby III: Join us and our special guest, Will Loux from the U.S. Dairy Export Council as we discuss the future of U.S. dairy exports. Ending commercial: The best part of my job is working directly with cheesemakers and helping their businesses run better because they make wonderful, great products. Anything we can do to make them more successful not only helps them, but helps Jacoby. We look at how milk flows through their plant, what their real cost of products are, so when they’re making marketing decisions, making new investments, particularly on whey processing, they have a benchmark to use to determine what opportunities they have and what the returns would be. Whey has become so valuable with these high-protein markets. There’s added value that they can get by just condensing it, and maybe moving further down the supply chain in the longer term, making products themselves. My role is to help them cost that so they have a better understanding of what the opportunities can be. Longer term, we expect the whey protein market to remain very valuable. For one part of the supply chain to be successful, everyone has to be, and part of my role is trying to help people be as competitive as they can possibly be. My superpower is practical application of data and analysis. I believe firmly that Jacoby’s success is because we help our suppliers and our buyers be successful. I’m Mike Brown, and I love working for T.C. Jacoby & Co. because I get to help people make their businesses more successful.

Why do farmers—some of the most independent people you'll ever meet—continue to build organizations they own together?In this solo episode of the AgCulture Podcast, Paul explores one of agriculture's oldest and most misunderstood business models: collective enterprises. Inspired by conversations at a recent conference in New Zealand featuring leaders from Fonterra and several of the country's largest farmer-owned organizations, Paul argues that we've spent too much time asking what a cooperative is, and not enough time asking why farmers keep creating them.The episode unpacks the economic problems that cooperatives were originally designed to solve, why marketing and supply cooperatives exist for fundamentally different reasons, and why successful farmer-owned organizations remain disciplined around a single mission. Paul also introduces a third concept—farmer-owned data infrastructure—and explains why the next generation of collective action in agriculture may not revolve around milk, grain, or fertilizer, but around data.Whether you're a member of a cooperative or simply interested in the future of agriculture, this episode offers a fresh way to think about ownership, strategy, and why some challenges are simply too big for farmers to solve alone.MEET THE HOSTPaul Windemuller is a dairy farmer, entrepreneur, Nuffield International Farming Scholar, and host of the AgCulture Podcast. His work focuses on the future of agriculture through the lenses of artificial intelligence, business strategy, farmer ownership, and global innovation.Having studied agricultural systems around the world, Paul is passionate about helping farmers better understand the economic forces shaping their businesses. His mission is to connect technology, people, and practical farming to build a more profitable, resilient, and farmer-led future for agriculture.ABOUT THE PODCASTDiscover the world of agriculture with the "Ag Culture Podcast".This podcast will be a gateway for those passionate about agriculture to explore its global perspectives and innovative practices.Join Paul as he shares his experiences in the agricultural industry, his travels, and encounters with important figures around the world.Available on YouTube, Spotify, and Apple Podcasts.Subscribe at http://www.agculturepodcast.com and keep an eye out for future episodes, bringing insights and stories from the vibrant world of agriculture.

The beltway beat-up of the week goes to the seemingly ongoing fascination over the missing paperwork and the Prime Minister's office when it came to a meeting between Z Energy and their concerns over Mike Smith's court case involving polluters and climate cost. Mike Smith called "conspiracy" and you don't, sadly, need to do a lot more than that to get half the media fizzing over a scandal for the ages. The bit, if you have forgotten, that made it look troublesome was twofold: 1) The PM's office didn't have said paperwork, hence it looked shady. 2) The Government changed, or is going through the process of changing, the law in a way that, surprise, surprise, suits Z Energy. Now, accepting lost paperwork is not a good look, and the Prime Minister freely admitted it weeks ago, we finally hear this week from a bloke called Lindis Jones who runs Z Energy. He produces the document they gave to the Government and here is the critical point – there is nothing in it. Nothing they hadn't said publicly already. In other words, they were alarmed that blokes like Smith can fill court time with fishing expeditions and that singling out companies like Z Energy and Fonterra is dangerous and ruinous to businesses and reputations. Now, they say that because, funnily enough, it's true. And that is why, funnily enough, the Government acted to change the law. The Government said, correctly, that the Government is the ultimate court and when it comes to climate policy the Parliament is the place decisions are made. Now, they did that, not because Z Energy thinks that, or Fonterra thinks that, or you and I think that. But because it's true and it's right and they would have done it anyway. There is no skullduggery. There is no clandestine, backroom nonsense. No one met in a dark alleyway. No Government was dragged into making a decision they wouldn't not have already made. All that happened was a piece of paper got waylaid and Mike Smith stirred up a very gullible media looking for fizz and clickbait. What's required of the media, if they are remotely interested in repairing their battered reputations, is the ability to see real news. The ability to differentiate between a story and BS and to not be so keen to see things that aren't there. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

The chief executive of Open Country Dairy fires a shot across the bows of Fonterra, after the dairy co-op cut 50 cents off its forecast milk price yesterday.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Shutterstock Track 1219389 Monetization ID TFGEPGEI0LHEIJAI Kia ora. Welcome to Wednesday's Economy Watch where we follow the economic events and trends that affect Aotearoa/New Zealand. I'm David Chaston and this is the international edition from interest.co.nz. Today we lead with news of more Trump flip-flops in haphazard moves that show Trump has no strategy or exit plan from the mess he created in the Middle East. But first, there was a Pulse dairy auction overnight and prices mostly dipped from last week's full event. Both butter and SMP dipped -0.4%, but the exception was WMP which rose +0.3%. The recently higher NZD has made those changes less in local currency, reinforcing the Fonterra payout reduction. Elsewhere, the US released its June CPI result with a somewhat surprising dip with it falling to 3.5% after May's three year high 4.2%. Markets had expected a lesser dip to 3.8%. The biggest retreat was the -9.7% fall in petrol prices (although this monitoring only recorded a +6.8% fall). Inflation was on the mind of Fed speakers overnight, especially Kevin Warsh, who reiterated his commitment to fighting inflation saying he had "no tolerance for persistently elevated inflation". But he had no details or plans on how he is to tackle inflation. He was presenting the Fed's semi-annual Monetary Policy Report to Congress. The Fed's target is inflation at 2% and it has been above that for 63 consecutive months now, so the credibility of achieving that target is not high. The ADP weekly private jobs monitoring fell again, now under +20,000 and the first time it has reported a gain that low since mid-March. It has been tracking lower since early May. The lower fuel costs shifted the needle in the NFIB sentiment survey for SMEs, resulting in a less-negative June result. But these same respondents cited inflation as their biggest threat, the highest since October 2024. Yesterday, big US banks reported strong earnings gains, helped by their role in the Big Tech IPOs and other tech fundraising. Singapore said its economic activity was +5.7% higher in Q2-2026 than in the same quarter in 2025. While this was a bit less than the +6.3% first quarter result, it was above the expected +5.5% outcome. China said its June exports were up a remarkable +27% from the same month a year ago, driven by US companies stockpiling ahead of the expected inflationary effects of upcoming producer price inflation from the Middle East shocks, and by China's push to export cars, and far more than the +18% expected. It also said its imports were +36% higher than a year ago, driven by crude oil imports. That all meant that it had a near record trade surplus of +US$126 bln in June, only exceeded by the January 2025 +US$136 bln in that month. In Australia, the Westpac-MI consumer sentiment survey became less pessimistic in July, mainly because their fuel price pressures eased - and their interest rate fears moderated as well. Job loss concerns eased too. But consumers remained gloomy about the economy overall and that meant they don't think now is a good time to buy a major appliance. And, although it recovered somewhat from very low levels, Aussies are still very uncertain where their housing market is going. The story was quite similar for business sentiment in July as reported by the NAB survey. However, this one reported a sharper-than-expected improvement even if it is still negative. Price pressures also moderated, with input price growth slowing to its weakest pace since February and retail prices falling for the first time in seven years. The UST 10yr yield is now just on 4.57%, down -4 bps from this time yesterday. The price of gold has risen to US$4059/oz, up +US$66/oz from yesterday. Silver is now just under US$59/oz, up +US$1.50 from yesterday. Oil prices are up +US$1.5o from yesterday at just on US$78.50/bbl in the US, while the international Brent price is now just over US$84/bbl and up +US$2. Hormuz transits have essentially dried up as the hot conflict explodes again and Iran declaring the Strait 'closed'. There have been just 3 crude tankers and 7 cargo ships exiting over the past 24 hours and all of those tied to Iran (1 dark with transponders off) but only 9 entering for new loads, all Iran-linked (1 dark). No-one was prepared to pay Trump's tolls, so Trump backed down (in a weird rambling announcement), less than 24 hours after announcing the levies. It is unknown if any are paying Iran's tolls. Plans to build pipelines to avoid the area are getting new momentum now. So Iran is shifting its focus to blockading the Red Sea at Yemen. The Kiwi dollar is up +50 bps from yesterday at just over 58.1 USc. Against the Aussie we are up +20 bps at 83.3 AUc. Against the euro we are up +40 bps at just on 50.9 euro cents. That all means our TWI-5 starts today at just on 62 which is up +50 bps from this time yesterday. The bitcoin price starts today at US$64,477 and up +4.1% from this time yesterday. Volatility over the past 24 hours has been moderate at just under +/- 2.5%. You can get more news affecting the economy in New Zealand from interest.co.nz. Kia ora. I'm David Chaston and we'll do this again tomorrow. Track 1219389 Monetization ID TFGEPGEI0LHEIJAI Audio soundtrack opening is licensed from Shutterstock, Track 1219389 Monetization ID TFGEPGEI0LHEIJAI

Fonterra's lowered this season's forecast milk payout following the recent drop in global dairy prices. The midpoint has dropped from $9.75 to $9.25 – well below the $9.70 payout currently forecast for last season. Prices at Global Dairy Trade auctions have fallen 11% since the opening forecast was announced in May. Fonterra CEO Richard Allen told Mike Hosking demand has been softer than anticipated, while production —globally and in New Zealand— has been very strong. He says overall demand is still there, it's just not quite as strong as they thought it was going to be. LISTEN ABOVE See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Fonterra’s chief executive says the co-operative has cut 50c from its forecast farmgate milk price as it battles “softer-than-expected” demand and strong global supply.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

SummaryFrom Fieldays 2026 Sam chats with Jacob from the UK delegation about HiFe Plants and their high iron, high zinc crops that could change how we feed people and animals.There's talk of long nights in the lab, GM vs natural plant breeding, the shocking realities of zinc deficiency in cows, and a missed pitch to Fonterra.Red kiwifruit gets a mention, and there's some debate about who actually gets to eat them.LinksHiFe Website Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

I've got a couple of questions around Mike Smith. Mike is back in the news because of his court case against big polluters. His case got upended by the recent Government move to block what they call "tort-based litigation" over climate change. Roughly speaking, the Government didn't like the uncertainty these sort of cases create for business, and also that the decision in such matters lies with the Government, not the Mike Smiths of the world and adventurist judges who like the idea of a bit of legal exploration and dabble. That should have been that. Except it isn't, because Smith is back in court looking to argue the argument. The questions: 1) Who pays for Mike Smith to spend his life in court? 2) What do we do about the judicial process that allows seemingly endless claim and counterclaim, to the claim and counterclaim? 3) What happened to the idea that the Government is the ultimate court, and we might want to bow to that idea just a bit more often? For every Mike Smith, who presumably has a legal mind or two on tap to dabble, there will be genuine cases of importance that are not heard. The judicial wheels are already hopelessly slow and exploratory musings can't be helping. America should be all the warning sign we need to avoid, at virtually all costs, the idea that you can simply have a stab at an idea in the hope you can find some sympathetic judge to rubber stamp Lord-knows-how many years and how many millions of dollars of mind-bending ideology that ties up businesses, lives and people in a process that may well end up nowhere. Clearly there are people like Smith who are born agitators, probably slightly bored, perhaps a bit aggro, but nevertheless dedicated to the idea of upset and stirring. Equally there will be those who have passed the bar who find the intellectual idea of bouncing a few controversial concepts about the place stimulating, if not fun and perhaps profitable. But most of the rest of us have a life to get on with and that includes Z Energy and Fonterra and the Government of the day. If Mike Smith wants to make law let him run for Parliament, our ultimate court. But short of that, surely there should be some rules that prevent the professional legal menace from wasting our time? See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

From Michelin stars to school lunches, sublime, ridiculous. I think it's safe to say none of the school lunches on offer will be getting Michelin stars. Then the last lot probably wouldn't have either. A scathing report has been issued by the Auditor General, which says only 50% percent of the meals delivered by the new school lunch programme in 2025 complied with the Ministry of Education's nutrition standards. We haven't talked about the school lunches for a hot minute, have we? Remember when it was the topic du jour? The parliamentary watchdog also took aim at inaccurate costings for the lunches, safety issues, contingency planning, and their rollout. Associate Minister for Education and the equivalent of 'Thatcher Thatcher milk snatcher', David Seymour is the one that said no, we're going to do away with them altogether, oh all right we'll keep them, but they have to be cheaper. He's hit out at the criticism, inferring the Auditor General took far too much notice of malcontents formerly involved in the scheme. “What they haven't done is a comparison of the quality before and after I took over. So they've been very critical in various ways and I'm happy to to answer their criticisms, but they haven't evaluated the whole programme and it appears that a lot of the initiation of the report and the feed into the report came from people that frankly had to be sacked after they were not able to manage the programme when I came in, and those who previously supplied the government, often at twice the current price. None of those people are very happy and they seem to have had a pretty good hearing from the Auditor General.” I don't think we can shoot the messenger. The office of the Auditor General has done some sterling work over the past few years and they're just simply looking at the numbers. But should we just do away with them altogether? Because when it was initially conceived, I mean if you look at the data, the 50% nutrition figure for the School Lunch Collective's meals was calculated by the Ministry of Education. It was disputed by the Collective, which said by Term 3 we'd got it up to 69% of the lunches complying with nutrition standards, and in Term 4 compliance was 75%. I bet your bottom dollar I was churning out school lunches back in the day that did not comply with the Ministry's nutrition standards. And probably, if you look at the kids' lunchboxes this morning, there's a lot of pressure from schools and fellow parents to produce nutritional, yet decorative, eye catching, pleasing to the palate school lunches. Honestly, that thing where you're doing the bento boxes with the pretty patterns in the sandwiches, as if parents didn't have enough to do of a morning. Anyway, they probably wouldn't meet the criteria every day either. And that's the thing. When school lunches were first envisaged, you and I, and indeed the MPs involved in the decision making, probably imagined a couple of Marmite or cheese sandwiches, some yoghurt, a muesli bar and an apple. Easy. Why not? Fill your boots. Do it. But that's where you and I, and indeed the MPs, are coming from a place of privilege. Who knew that a Marmite sandwich was privilege? It is. Bureaucrats stuck their oars in and said, no, when it comes to the school lunches for certain children, the school lunch may well be the only regular meal of the day. You privileged people with your Marmite sandwich go home to cooked dinners full of protein and veggies. These children don't. Therefore, we must cram as many nutrients and veggies as we possibly can into the school lunch to ensure these poor kids get their daily allowance. That's where it all got very, very, very complicated. Because if you're trying to make the school lunch the main meal of the day, generally it'll have to be heated. And you'll have to pack it full of veggies and some of these kids, you, some of these kids don't even know the texture of raw vegetables or couscous or rice or anything of the like. Some providers did it very well. Remember that school in Porirua? Where we had the lovely principal and they got the parents involved and they did their own lunches. And they were mums and they were sensible and they knew how to make meals on the smell of an oily rag and how to disguise vegetables. You grate the carrot into the spaghetti bolognese. You don't put it there in big lumps because they're not used to that, a lot of these kids – they don't want to eat chunks of carrot. Most parents who are listening to this show will know how you disguise veggies into food. You usually do it when they're about 18 months old, nine months to 18 months old. You don't make it slop, but get them used to texture and chewing and the like. And that's what you do. You don't hit them up with a couscous salad on day one and expect them to scarf it down. We come back to what success looks like for this programme. For me, I never imagined in 10 trillion years that it would cause this much angst, political toing and froing, that it would cost that much, around $328 million a year, that it would take up, command so much airtime and column inches in the media. It's absurd. I thought it would be a lunch as you and I know it, not every single calorie and veggie a child would need in a day. That it would be about improving attendance because when the kids knew there was a good meal for them, they'd turn up to school, and performance would improve. But no, that hasn't happened. School attendance hasn't improved and the only data around improved classroom performance is non-existent. You just get the touchy feelies – the children reported a better sense of wellbeing. Well, that's not getting an A+, is it? That's not being able to sit through a reading lesson. No, the programme's become more trouble than it's bloody worth. Do away with the government being involved, you know, give some money to the charities that do provide, KidsCan provide lunches, Sanitarium and Fonterra provide breakfast clubs. Either scale it right back and keep it simple and keep it as cheap as possible, the sandwich, the yoghurt, the apple, or just don't do it at all. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Sarah Kennedy of Calocurb explains why food noise spikes in perimenopause: falling estrogen raises cravings while the hindbrain overrides forebrain willpower under stress or poor sleep. She contrasts natural appetite hormones (GLP-1, GIP, CCK, PYY) with pharmaceutical GLP-1 agonists, which run at roughly 3,000% physiological levels versus the body's natural 300% rise - explaining rebound hunger after stopping injectables. Calocurb, a hops-derived bitter compound, stimulates a 600% natural hormone rise for an 18% average calorie reduction. WHAT YOU'LL LEARN Why food noise isn't a willpower problem, and what's actually happening in your hindbrain versus your forebrain when cravings take over How declining estrogen in perimenopause changes your calorie needs even as cravings increase What GLP-1, GIP, CCK, and PYY actually do in your body, and how they differ from each other How pharmaceutical GLP-1 agonists compare to your body's own natural hormone levels, and what that gap means for nutrient intake Why coming off a GLP-1 medication can trigger intense rebound hunger, and what's happening hormonally during that transition How bitter taste receptors throughout your gut influence appetite signaling, and why this evolutionary mechanism matters What role the luteal phase, travel, and sleep deprivation play in cravings, and how timing strategies can offset them TIMESTAMPS 00:00 - Intro  00:58 - Willpower vs. Biology: The Hindbrain-Forebrain Battle Driving Cravings  04:58 - GLP-1 Explained: How Natural Appetite Hormones Actually Work 10:21 – Supraphysiological Dosing on GLP-1 Drugs and Nutrient Sufficiency Risks  14:03 – Bitter Taste Receptors: The Gut-Brain Mechanism Behind Appetite Suppression  16:58 – Managing Mindless Snacking, Grazing, and the "Licks, Sips, and Dips" Problem  22:06 – Using Appetite Support Strategically During Weight Loss Plateaus  26:26 – Onboarding, Dosing, and Managing Digestive Side Effects  28:13 – Blood Sugar Regulation and New Clinical Research on Weight Loss Outcomes  30:51 – Why You Must Transition Off GLP-1s Strategically to Avoid Rebound Weight Gain  36:53 – Mood, Motivation, and the Liberating Effect of Quieting Food Noise  39:44 – Closing Thoughts VALUABLE RESOURCES• Take the BioSyncing Quiz to help you understand what's actually happening in your body — and how to fix it.

Michelle Watt talks to Debra Kells, Farm Source’s Regional Head for the Upper North Island, about record attendance for Fonterra at Fieldays, On-Farm Solutions for farmers, and what's next for the new season.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

There's not much Waikato dairy farmer Jim van der Poel hasn't been involved with in the past 40 years. 

Michelle Watt talks to Chris Kane, Fonterra’s Director of New Zealand Manufacturing, about the winners at this year's Best Site Cup.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

From the PM to a former PM's son, we ask Fonterra's MD for Co-op Affairs about the first GDT Auction of the new dairy season and whether he's read Barry Soper's book about his late father, Jim. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

There's been more revelations about a Fonterra briefing document that made its way to the Beehive ahead of a proposed law change that scuttled a court case involving the dairy giant. This is the briefing document that was handed to a former staffer in the Prime Minister's office. It was regarding a climate activist's case against major emitters. On Tuesday afternoon, a spokesman for the Prime Minister revealed the briefing was also sent by Fonterra to the staffer's private email account. Political reporter Lillian Hanly spoke to Lisa Owen.

It's an uncertain future for farmers, with global events making it harder to predict the milk price. Fonterra's midpoint payout forecast for the current season is $9.70. It's slightly up for next season, at $9.75, but it's signalling that could be as low as $8 or as high as $11. Dairy NZ Chief Executive Campbell Parker told Mike Hosking the gap is mirroring the current volatility, with the top end of last year about $10. LISTEN ABOVE See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Fonterra’s new chief executive kicks off his tenure with some very solid Q3 business results, headlined by an opening 26/27 season milk forecast price of $9-75 (midpoint).See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Michelle Watt talks to Andrew Johns, Fonterra General Manager of Operations for the lower South Island, about how the new UHT plant is tracking in Edendale, and New Zealand Dairy being in high demand around the world. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Rural lending specialist Rabobank expects the 2026-27 dairy season to be another strong one for farmgate milk prices, but says rising inflation will take its toll. After a string of strong Global Dairy Trade (GDT) auctions, Rabobank expects a robust opening milk price from dairy co-op Fonterra of $9.50 to $10.00 per kg of milksolids for the 2026-27 season. However, the bank said the inflationary impacts of geopolitical disruption were likely to squeeze farmer margins in the new season. The Country's Jamie Mackay explained further. LISTEN ABOVESee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

This past dairy season is all-but-confirmed as record breaking but remaining at those lofty heights will be farmers' next challenge. Rabobank expects milk supply to stay elevated into 2026-27, with farmgate prices forecast between $9.50 and $10 per kilogram. But rising inflation could squeeze margins. Fonterra Co-Operative Council Chair John Stevenson told Mike Hosking in terms of returns, there's no doubt it's a good time. He says they've seen strong milk prices and Fonterra farmers have seen strong returns on their shares, but the thing to look out for are input costs, which are continuing to creep up. LISTEN ABOVE See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Some are working pretty hard currently to buy into the Mike Smith storyline that the big end of town has the Government's ear over climate change. Mike Smith is the activist, the agitator, the chainsaw man, the "smack the America's Cup" bloke. So, you know, a life of angst and upset. His latest outing was in court, looking to sue individual companies over their pollution around climate change. He was looking for an activist court to agree with the idea that a company can be held to specific and individual account for something that happens all over the world by, if you think about it, all of us. The Government stepped in a week or so back and put an end to it. Their argument is Parliament is your ultimate court and these sorts of laws are for it, not individual judges who may sway with the wind. They didn't put it that way, I did. But there is no doubt in my mind, in a number of areas, various courts these days are open to a bit of judicial dabbling. In my humble opinion it is brought about by an increasing arrogance that they make the rules. It's true to say a court can have a say or hold sway. But it's equally true to say the ultimate court is the Parliament of the land and we do not want that undermined. Now, Mike claims people like Fonterra have been writing to the Prime Minister's office and advocating for the Government to step in on court action like his. And given they did he now suggests this is collusion, this is scally-waggery, this is big money, big influence malarkey that borders on scandal. Or could it be a corporate saying what you would expect a corporate to say and a government, not surprisingly, doing what they would do anyway. In other words, Fonterra didn't need to say anything because Paul Goldsmith would have done what he did without any correspondence. Why? Because they think the same way I do. I didn't write to anyone and didn't have a meeting with anyone and yet I would have thought, nay expected, the Government to nip the Smith fishing expedition in the bud. Why? Because it's obvious and it's common sense. See not everything is a conspiracy. Sometimes, remarkably, especially when it's obvious, people tend to have the same view. Letters or no letters, meetings or no meetings. Nothing to see here. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Fonterra’s chief executive for Greater China is at Bakery China, the world’s largest professional bakery and trade exhibition in Shanghai.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Fonterra’s CFO comments on last night’s final GDT Auction for the 25/26 season. The headline move (up 0.6%) was largely in line with expectations, with a few unders and overs. Butter came out better than thought, and SMP a little worse (WMP 1.2%, SMP 0.2%, Butter 2.5%, and Cheese -1.3%).See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

For City Counselling this week, Wire Host Caeden spoke to Councillor Julie Fairey about the need for council to be involved in discussions about the details of an additional harbour crossing, and the number of job losses in the Auckland Transport restructure.  And they spoke to Māni Dunlop from Te Ao Māori News for our new bi-weekly catch-up on the political issues of the week from a Māori perspective. News Director Castor spoke to kaumatua and climate activist Mike Smith about his court case against Fonterra in the wake of the government removing its legal basis. They also spoke to Professor of Law at the University of Waikato, Alexander Gillespie, about the legal ramifications of such a decision.  For our weekly catch-up with the Labour Party, Producer Pranuja spoke with Shanan Halbert about the Government disestablishing the BSA and scrapping the tertiary Fees Free scheme, as well as the Government's new citizenship test. She also spoke with Associate Professor Alice Mills about why secure housing is central to reintegration for those leaving prison.

It's Dairy Week here on The Country, and the chief executive of our second-biggest dairy company - Open Country Dairy - talks about forecast milk price, end-of-season volumes, the protein boom in the US, and whether Fonterra farmers are switching camps.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Michelle Watt talks to Lisa Payne, Fonterra's Farm Source Milk Supply Director. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Fonterra’s Chief Operating Officer reviews last night’s 1.5% lift in the GDT auction, a steady performance and largely in line with expectations. The welcomed improvements in SMP and WMP may have been expected an auction or two earlier, but better late than never. WMP 2.2%, SMP 3%, AMF 1.1%, Butter -2.6%, BMP 9% and Cheese -3.6%.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Building resilience in rural communities is important, to not just survive but thrive. In this episode brought to you by Rural Support Trust and Fonterra, special guests Michelle Ruddell and Gerard Vaughan discuss how Rural Support Trust and Farmstrong provide resources and practical steps to uplift and support rural communities. Check out more info at rural-support.org.nz See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Derek Champagne talks with former British Military Officer, Jimmy Burroughes. Jimmy's story is one of resilience, reinvention, and purpose. He began his career as a British Military Officer, leading soldiers across Europe and the Middle East. It was there he learned, sometimes in life-or-death situations, the true meaning of intentional leadership: how to inspire trust, keep people motivated under extreme pressure, and build unity in uncertain environments.When Jimmy transitioned out of the military, he faced his own challenges, struggling to find his place in the corporate world and experiencing first-hand the burnout and disconnection that so many leaders face. This difficult period became the catalyst for his mission to redefine leadership in a way that sustains both people and performance.Through his journey from the battlefield to the boardroom, Jimmy developed his “Simplify to Amplify” methodology, a framework born out of necessity that is now transforming how global organisations lead their people. His story resonates deeply because it is not just about success; it is about overcoming adversity, finding clarity, and choosing a path that creates lasting impact.Jimmy shares this journey with honesty and humility, weaving in the hard lessons from both military service and corporate leadership. Audiences often walk away not only inspired but equipped with the belief that they too can lead with more intention, reclaim time, and create meaningful results without burning out.Jimmy made the leap from British military officer to Fortune 500 leadership expert and now leads the charge in transforming overwhelmed managers into high-performing leaders. His bestselling books, “Beat Burnout - Ignite Performance” and “Escape the Multitasking Trap,” deliver action you can feel. His signature “Simplify to Amplify” methodology gets leaders performing at an average of 47% higher in just 90 days—no fluff, just results.Across Samsung, Bank of America, Lego, Fonterra, and 40+ countries, Jimmy has guided more than 3,000 leaders from burnout to breakthrough. The secret? He applies hard-won lessons from command and operations to cut through clutter and create measurable improvements. These same principles have driven up productivity by 156% and slashed overwhelm by 89% in teams worldwide.Learn more at: https://www.jimmyburroughes.com/Business Leadership Series Intro and Outro music provided by Just Off Turner: https://music.apple.com/za/album/the-long-walk-back/268386576

If farm succession is something that's been sitting in the back of your mind, this one's for you. In this episode brought to you by Rural Support Trust and Fonterra, special guest Ashley Burdon discusses the emotional side of succession, and how the grief, fear and uncertainty is completely normal. Check out more info at rural-support.org.nz See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Fonterra’s managing director of co-operative affairs reviews last night’s GDT Auction, down 2.7%, although the powders fared better (WMP - 0.6%, SMP + 3.2%). Was this a disappointing result, or do we take it during times of turmoil? See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

We all know the frustration of waking up to bad weather on a day when you have lots to do on farm, and how it can weigh on you. In this episode, brought to you by Rural Support Trust and Fonterra, special guest Paul Walker discusses why looking after your head is just as important as looking after your body when the weather gets you down. Check out more info at rural-support.org.nz See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

The small Waikato township of Waitoa is losing its long-term access to free water. The local Fonterra factory is ending its more than 40-year old arrangement to supply locals water - originally to serve homes affected by factory dust. Matamata-Piako District Council is consulting the public on an 8.2-million proposed solution. Mayor Ash Tanner says Fonterra likely wants to avoid responsibility for anyone getting sick. "The problem I think we have in this country is - there's an incident, and then we have a bit of a knee-jerk reaction and then we set up a regulatory body to overlook it and then we go over the top and we make it harder to supply it." LISTEN ABOVESee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Michelle Watt talks to Mat Cullen the South Island Regional Head for Farm Source, about the Co-op returning capital to farmer shareholders, and the expansion of the organics programme to the South Island. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

The PM ponders the Indian FTA, whether the $3.2 billion Fonterra capital return injection into the economy will “touch the sides”, and whether he needs help when it comes to his own communication with the media. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Fonterra’s new chief executive in waiting joins us to discuss his past and Fonterra’s future. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Repaying debt, buying new farm machinery, splashing out on a holiday or even purchasing a classic Hilux. Those are some of the ways Fonterra's farmer-shareholders plan to spend Tuesday's major capital return. Farmers have received an average $400,000 each for their share of the sale of the company's consumer brands to French company Lactalis. Anna Sargent reports.

Fonterra's sale of its Mainland Group consumer business saw shareholding farmer-suppliers take home an average of $400,000. Could retailers in dairy farming hubs see windfalls? Gore travel agent Aimee spoke to John Campbell.

It's pay day for Fonterra's farmer-shareholders today and a major bank's prediction for farmgate milk prices has lifted. The latest rural news with Gianina Schwanecke.

Fonterra shareholders are flush with cash this morning, after receiving their share of the sale of the company's consumer brands. Wayne Langford is a sixth-generation dairy farmer in Golden Bay, and the president of Federated Farmers. He spoke to Ingrid Hipkiss.

This episode is sponsored by Timeline and Calocurb. Timeline - Timeline's clinically proven formula is now available at a new, lower price. Mitopure now starts at $99, with the exact same science and formula. And my listeners can still get 20% off when you go to https://timeline.com/FLIPPING50SHOW  Calocurb - Feel full faster with Calocurb! Clinically proven, natural hunger control – prescription free, affordable, and fast acting.Get 10% off when you use this link https://www.flippingfifty.com/calocurb Other Episodes You Might Like: Previous Episode - Navigating Unexpected Health Challenges in Midlife Next Episode - The Bible for Exercise Guidelines Update: Here's What It Means More Like This - GLP-1 Medications for Weight Loss: A 42-Year Fitness Professional's Honest Take Resources: Don't know where to start? Book your Discovery Call with Debra. Leave this session with insight into exactly what to do right now to make small changes, smart decisions about your exercise time and energy. The food noise is real.  If you're looking for natural appetite control without the shot, tapering off the shot, or otherwise this episode is for you. If you simply want a better understanding of appetite, craving control, and calming urges to do things you know don't serve you, stay with me.  This episode dives into natural appetite control with clinical research, and real-world application—especially for women navigating midlife, menopause, and weight management. My Guest: Sarah Kennedy is the Founder and CEO of Calocurb Ltd. Calocurb, a revolutionary weight management product, was commercialized after 15 years and $30 million of New Zealand Government backed science. The company currently sells in five international markets and continues to grow rapidly through channels and geographies. Prior to joining Fonterra in 2011 she had more than 20 years' experience in dietary and animal nutrition. Questions We Answer in This Episode: [00:05:47] How was Calocurb developed and where did the idea originate? [00:12:18] How should someone use Calocurb during stressful or high-trigger times like holidays? [00:14:22] What can women expect when coming off GLP-1 medications and can appetite hormones be restored? [00:18:41] Should women try a natural alternative like Calocurb before using GLP-1 medications? [00:20:47] What are the side effects of Calocurb compared to GLP-1 medications? [00:22:47] Do you need a prescription for Calocurb and what is it made of [00:26:16] What is the difference between hunger and cravings and why does it matter?

Greenpeace is claiming victory after an out of court settlement with Fonterra over what it said is an open and shut case of greenwashing. A label on the diary giant's Anchor butter read; 100 percent New Zealand Grass Fed. Greenpeace claims that gave the impression Fonterra dairy cows exclusively graze on grass, when they are actually also fed palm kernal products. In 2024 the environmental group filed a law suit, but the pair has now resolved the dispute. Greenpeace agriculture campaigner Sinead Deighton-O'Flynn spoke to Lisa Owen.

As the Iran conflict goes on, Victoria assesses the impact on New Zealand businesses - specifically the national airline. The latest big contruction firm to collapse - and what's next for now departing Fonterra chief executive Miles Hurrell. 

A group of big energy consumers says power prices need to hold steady this winter with businesses already shouldering cost increases driven by war in the Middle East. The Major Electricity Users Group includes Fonterra and meat exporter ANZCO, Woolworths and Datagrid. Together the members account for more than a quarter of New Zealand's energy use. Chair of the Major Electricity Users group, John Harbord spoke to Lisa Owen.

ANZ's general manager for business and agri discusses how the Fonterra consumer brands sale will impact rural towns and supermarket shelves.Go to this episode on rnz.co.nz for more details

In this episode, we sit down with Sarah Kennedy, Founder and CEO of Calocurb, to explore a radically different approach to appetite control rooted in real science, not willpower. With decades of leadership in nutrition and food science, Sarah breaks down how GLP-1s work, the downsides of chronic calorie restriction, and the key differences between synthetic drugs like semaglutide and natural GLP-1 stimulation. We dive into the history of bitters, digestion, and how Calocurb's patented ingredient Amarasate® supports appetite regulation through the gut–brain axis. Sarah also shares compelling clinical trial results, insights on coming off GLP-1 drugs, and why under-eating—especially for women—can backfire hormonally. It's a nuanced, empowering conversation about working with your biology to feel satisfied, nourished, and in control.Founder and CEO of Calocurb, Sarah Kennedy shepherded years of scientific research and clinical trials to bring a revolutionary product to market. A veterinarian by training, with more than 20 years' experience in dietary and animal nutrition, Sarah has held a number of CEO and senior executive positions in food and agriculture industries, at companies including Fonterra and Healtheries/Vitaco NZ.  In 2010, at MIT, Sarah completed a Sloan Fellowship Program in Global Leadership and Innovation and has spent decades leading in health, nutrition and consumer products with executive roles at many, many companies.Calocurb is a 100% natural appetite control supplement. Amarasate®, the patented active ingredient in Calocurb, was developed in New Zealand over 14 years and with $30m invested by Plant and Food Research, the largest NZ government-owned research institute.SHOW NOTES:0:40 Welcome to the show!2:39 About Sarah Kennedy3:54 Welcome her to the podcast!5:04 What is a GLP-1?7:27 Downside of calorie restriction8:52 Natural vs synthetic GLP-113:41 Coming off of GLP-1s14:56 Why it isn't just willpower18:07 History of bitters in the diet20:12 Stimulating digestion & appetite suppression23:22 Calocurb Study26:02 Semaglutide vs Calocurb29:45 Clinical trial results32:54 Calocurb & PMS34:10 Dosing Calocurb40:08 Our personal experiences43:37 Importance of protein intake46:41 Females that are under-eating54:52 Where to find Sarah & Calocurb55:30 Her final piece of advice57:21 Thanks for tuning in!RESOURCES:Website: www.Calocurb.com - Discount code: BIOHACKERBABESIG: CalocurbFacebook: CalocurbGLOBALSupport this podcast at — https://redcircle.com/biohacker-babes-podcast/donationsAdvertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brands

In midlife, I see TONS of women who are “doing all the right things”—eating clean, exercising harder, even restricting more—yet still are seeing the scale creep up. That's why I've invited Sarah Kennedy on the podcast, who's the founder and CEO of Calocurb– a natural, non-prescription hunger control treatment option.  We're unpacking why hunger can feel louder and more relentless than ever for women in midlife. Sarah breaks down how shifting hormones, chronic stress, poor sleep, and dwindling bandwidth all fuel food noise, cravings, and that constant tug-of-war with your appetite.  You'll learn why willpower is not the problem—and why your biology deserves more compassion… not more restriction.  Most importantly, Sarah shares practical, science-backed ways to calm midlife cravings and support your changing metabolism with more ease. Tune in here and finally make a change that shows you results!  Sarah Kennedy Sarah Kennedy is the founder and CEO of Calocurb, a revolutionary weight-management product based in New Zealand. Calocurb now sells in five international markets and continues to grow rapidly. Sarah, formerly with Fonterra, held senior roles including Vice President International Farming in China and Managing Director of Dairy Nutrition and RD1 retail stores. Prior to joining Fonterra, she spent over 20 years in dietary and animal nutrition. A veterinarian by training, Sarah completed the Sloan Fellowship in Global Leadership and Innovation at MIT. IN THIS EPISODE How Calocurb can help curb your hunger, especially in midlife The physiology behind midlife hunger changes  How Calocurb works and why it's different than synthetic GLP-1s  The benefits of taking Calocurb in midlife  Taking Calocurb safely alongside HRT and other supplements   Dose timing and the best way to take Calocurb for results  Fitting Calocurb into a broader wellness routine for women  Get started with Calocurb with a 10% discount!  QUOTES “When you reduce your calories by 25%, your hunger actually doubles over four months. So the brain is telling you to go out and look for food, and your body thinks you are going into a famine. So it's upping and upping and upping… this is why 99% of diets fail.” “I've been on it 6-7 years now. I don't take it twice a day, only take it once. But I can honestly say to you, I'm at peace with food… I think many, many people will find that.” “This has been revolutionary in the fact that we now understand what is happening in our body and what is driving this hunger and craving.” RESOURCES MENTIONED Calocurb: USE CODE DRMARIZA for 10% off your purchase! https://www.calocurb.com/drmarizasnyder Order my new book: The Perimenopause Revolution https://peri-revolution.com/ Use code ENERGIZED and get 10% off on your MitoQ order https://www.anrdoezrs.net/click-101585564-17091761 Calcurb on Facebook Calocurb on Instagram RELATED EPISODES  #621: The Truth About Metabolic Health, Hormones and GLP-1s with Tyna Moore #558: The Science Behind Ozempic and Important Facts About GLP-1 Agonists + Hormone Replacement For Women 40+ with Dr. Tyna Moore #613: Effective Tools for Curbing Your Appetite in Midlife and Optimizing Your Blood Sugar with Nagina Sethi Abdullah #601: The Food You Eat Will Impact Your Menopause Journey + Foods to Ease Menopause and Promote Longevity with Dr. Federica Amati 696: Why Diets Stop Working in Midlife—and What Actually Helps Instead with Lara Frendjian