Alta Launches CheeseMaker Brand

(October 2 , 2002) Alta Genetics has announced that it is launching a new product line called CheeseMaker to meet the growing global demand for high component sires. While high component sires have existed within Alta and competitor lineups in the past, this brand is thought to be the first of its kind around the world, specifically dedicated to dairymen who make high components a primary selection goal.

According to Alta’s Vice President of Product Development, Bart Verbeek, “this is a natural progression for Alta resulting from our European sampling initiative that was started five years ago. Large numbers of bulls selected with components in mind are achieving proven status now with the program nearing maturity in 2003,” continues Verbeek. Still, Verbeek is quick to point out that the brand is not just about European proven sires. “High component sires are also generated from time to time from our North American sampling programs and these bulls of course could be marketed under the CheeseMaker brand name as well.”

In Europe where demand for the CheeseMaker brand is expected to be particularly strong, selection goals that favor high component expression have been standard fare for years. In Europe and in most other dairy regions Cheese products continue to show the largest growth opportunity among dairy products demanded by consumers providing ample rationale for designing such a brand. “The CheeseMaker sires will offer dairymen variety in terms of pedigrees and strengths in addition to delivering high component milk,” explains Andreas Steffen, Alta’s European Sales and Marketing Director. “Clearly high components on their own are not enough, but for customers who ship milk to processors focused on cheese, butter or cream products, the incentives paid for the constituents in the milk provide a compelling reason to consider CheeseMaker sires. Within that group dairymen can expect to find calving ease sires too as well as sires that provide exceptional functional type improvement,” assures Steffen.

Component expression is considered one of the highest heritable traits dairyman can influence through their breeding decisions. Significant headway can be made in several generations, but, by the very nature of dairying it will still take five to ten years before a major shift can be attributed to genetic selection. That’s why some dairymen in North America are already thinking more about components today. “Payment systems have been moving in that direction for years and especially now when milk prices are really under pressure at the farm level the guys that have bred for higher fat and protein are weathering the storm better than most,” asserts Alta’s US Western Regional Manager, Charlie Perotti. “The cyclical nature of the business will undoubtedly continue,” predicts Perotti, but, “CheeseMaker provides one way in which dairymen can protect themselves a little bit”.

Alta’s decision to launch a program dedicated to producers who make high components a primary selection goal is a significant step since it essentially creates a sub-brand that will compete both internally and externally for consideration by dairymen. For so many years the genetics industry has used a “one size fits all” mentality that demands producers apply their own personal criteria to a long list of available sires. Varied herd sizes, management practices and processor payment systems demand that we change to better serve the dairyman. CheeseMaker is a program that is designed to do precisely that.

For more information on CheeseMaker contact:

Paul Meyer
Alta Brand Manager, Alta Genetics Inc.
RR # 2 Balzac, Alberta, Canada T0M 0E0
Ph: (403) 226-4228
Fax: (403) 226-4276
Email: pmeyer@altagenetics.com