I am involved the ag world. This is bad news for dairy farmers and farmers who produce feed commodities to feed dairy cows

https://www.msn.com/en-us/money/com...or-bankruptcy/ar-BBWEnS3?ocid=spartandhp

Dean Foods, America's largest milk producer, is filing for bankruptcy.
The 94-year-old company has struggled in recent years because Americans are drinking less cows milk. 2019 has been a particularly brutal: the company's sales tumbled 7% in the first half of the year, and profit fell 14%. Dean Foods stock has lost 80% this year
The company, which makes some of the country's most recognizable milk and dairy products, including Dairy Pure, Organic Valley and Land O'Lakes, has blamed its struggles on the "accelerated decline in the conventional white milk category."
The company is saddled with debt and has been unable to fund all of its workers' pensions. So on Tuesday, Dean Foods filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection to keep the business operating, reorganize its debt and help fund the pensions while it looks to sell the company.
Dean Foods said in a statement that it is working with the Dairy Farmers of America cooperative on a potential deal, in which the cooperative would buy almost all of the company.
As part of the bankruptcy process, the company secured $850 million in financing from its existing lenders, including Rabobank, to keep the company running.
Once a staple of the American refrigerator, milk has slowly fallen out of favor with consumers as they seek less-sugary or plant-based alternatives.
The global market for milk alternatives is expected to top $18 billion this year, up 3.5% from 2018, according to Euromonitor. That's still a fraction of the traditional milk market which will come in at just under $120 billion globally this year.
That's not the only problem Dean Foods has faced. Walmart, which was one of Dean Food's biggest customers, dropped them last year after building its own dairy plant.

we go thru about 3 gallons of whole milk a week and use real butter to cook with everything

screw that almond milk horseshit

Walmart is good at doing that. In fact all the major chains are pretty good at favoring their own brands over other major brand products. More profits.

Our area is being killed by this, Dean Foods was huge.

Good ol’ Wallyworld...bringing decimation to small towns everywhere!

Sorry to hear this. They make good butter. I can easily use a whole stick on 4 sweet potatoes at one sitting. Sweet potatoes or corn bread are a good excuse to eat butter. I'm lucky having no cholesterol issues.

Guessing that the Land O Lakes Brand won't go away.
What's next for the Walmarts? Beef farming[or are they already there]?

I almost exclusively drink raw, un-homogenized, whole milk, between one and two gallons per week.

If they had connections to a prominent politician they could cry Too big to fail! and get bailed out.

We drink real milk. As almond growers though, it is great when you can sell your waste for profit and have it become "milk".

Ironically, 10 years ago, all that waste was sold for nothing to dairy farms as feed.

Land o Lakes is the only brand of butter I buy, and I use lots of it. I always keep between eight and twelve sticks on hand. Blood tests are normal. Just had a test last week. It’s been known for a while now that dietary cholesterol has no impact on blood cholesterol.

That can put a serious hit on an area's economy. I know what it would do here. Southern ID has about 1/2 million cows within 100 miles of Twin Falls. The major products are cheese with a huge amount going to Chobani yogurt. ID is 3d in milk production behind CA and WI, quite a ways behind them, actually. I don't know how big dairies are in CA & WI, but in ID, the average dairy is 1200 cows with a few as large as 10,000.

Around here, if you're looking for rural property to buy, you want to spend considerable time looking at aerial photos to make sure the place isn't downwind of a large dairy. Some of the properties are for sale because they aren't livable.

Why is it Walmart's fault that they didn't want to pay Dean's price for milk? Isn't that free enterprise? Knock it off, ya commies.

Pajama boys drink soy milk.

They eschew anything to do with animals.

I have to wonder if soy type vegan proponents realize how many animals are displaced by raising corn and soy beans to produce their ethanol and tofu.

Dang! That sucks!

Bummer, we buy their butter

Not sure it's completely The Walmarts fault, but it's what The Walmarts puts a supplier through to become a vendor there-ramp up production, cut cost[to The Walmarts].

Have to admit that I don’t buy their butter. The French cultured butter from Trader Joe’s is much better. Alas, the little milk I buy is store brand too.

I don't buy it, I buy the Walmart brand. 🤣

Our family has always supported LandOLakes. We are down to three pounds now.

Me too. "Dean's Foods" ain't really Lando'Lakes anymore than LeRoy Beans is LeRoy Beans. I always did like the hot Injun chick on their stuff though.

As an aside, I don't use ANY margarine.

Same here.

The white watery crap that’s passed off as milk isn’t fit to be classified as milk. They ruin everything so that everything is lawyer proof....

Dairy has been a tough business for a long time, at least all of my life.

Exactly.

pretty much slash & burn in the food products industry from now on.

the broiler industry sector in the poultry industry has ups and downs.

cheap feed trained in from out west is always a good thing.

buying bans from saudi arabia, russia or china is bad.

selling excess supply by barge to cuba is good.

I really like their European unsalted butter. Higher fat content than regular butter. Fantastic for baking. Expensive but really good stuff. I hope they keep making it.

Glad there's a use for your bi-product RUM.

Good thing can can get away with calling it almond "milk" though....


No one would buy 'Nut Juice"..........


and then no market for your waste.

Geno

Doing my part to support the dairy industry today.

Having a cream cheese and jelly sandwich for lunch..

Had a bowl of cereal this morning with 3-4 oz milk on it with a few ounces of Bulgarian style buttermilk for the probiotics too. Wife puts it in her coffee and tea, so we go through about a 1/2 gallon a week or so.

Don't drink much plain milk around here, I'm way over the age of 12.

Geno

PS, for Jim Conrad.................if I could get some blood to mix with it I might try the Masai diet for a while though. Those folks seem to do OK on it.

I hope that there is some way out for them. They make fine products.

I don't have any choice. I am so milk allergic I can't drink a cup of it without having to $hit it out just a couple of hours later. I have no choice but to drink almond milk. With that in mind, I only eat REAL butter. Land o lakes is a favorite of mine. No, I can't drink their milk but I can eat there butter. I can eat yogurt and cottage cheese as well. My wife and I are real dairy eaters. My wife drinks real milk at every setting and we eat real butter in all of our cooking as well. I certainly hope Land O lakes can get their house in order and can stay in business.

kwg

My wife works for Keller's Creamery here in Winnsboro, Texas. They make butter and used to make milk solids like what is used in candy. I believe they're tied to Dairy Farmers of America because they used to be AMPI. They make some of the butter for store brands I'll have to find out which ones. I do know they sell it under Keller's creamery and Plugra I think they make the costco Kirkland Butter.

Edit: Keller's creamery is owned by DFA. They also make Borden's Butter.

Company I used to work for built a "milk replacer" plant in Black River Falls, WI for L-O'L 20+ years ago. Similar to powdered coffee creamer. Dairy farmers (as I understand it) use(d) this to supplement/replace mother's milk for dairy calves up to weaning.

Betcha the higher ups at Dean Foods will come out smelling like roses . . . consumers not so much. Hate seeing this type of stuff happening . . .

I use both DP and Land O Lakes here and there. I guess the thing that bothers me is how a company with such a long history and brand recognition can collapse so quickly into oblivion. Reminds us that nothing is forever, except of course Democrat lies.

the company is iconic, for sure

The land o lakes spray whipped cream from costco is the best. Almond milk is just nut juice..no thanks.

Bb

I have a 16oz tub of Walmart low fat small curd cottage cheese for lunch every day at work. The price is nice, but I like the taste. The Meijer brand changed and I didn't like it. Dean's, I'll buy that if WM is out. It is good, just not good enough to pay more for.

It did make me a bit sad to learn that Dean's is in trouble.

This is sad to read. Dean Foods gave me my first real full time job. I worked for them in three different locations over several years. It was a good company run by good people. Leaving when I did turned out to be a case of a young man thinking that the grass must be greener on the other side of the hill. It wasn't.

i remember hearing that if you fold that land o lakes box just right you can see that injun chicks poontang.

Doesn't work. I checked.

We buy Land O Lakes, good stuff!

Well we eat little butter but it is/was theirs. I think the last time I drank milk was over forty years ago.

Singing the blues in Shoreview I bet...

Nut Juice?? Heresy!!!!

https://youtu.be/JJCTIPWPNtw

I only read the first page here,

But no-one had blamed the unions?

You guys are getting soooooo soft..........

Sorry guys, but before you all go and throw Walmart under the bus, please take a good look at this statement above.

I hate to bring some of you back to reality, but a company's spread sheet can't pay an unlimited number of workers not to work. That is what a pension is. You pay people NOT to work.

Pensions are a great benefit, if you are the beneficiary. There is a tipping point that where profitability gets outstripped by the number of people drawing a pension. This is what crippled the US steel industry and the US auto industry. It is the reason that the steel industry could make a deal with the Swedes or the Japs on a sale because they wouldn't take the pension liabilities.

My father-in- was a EE for Martian Marietta for 30 years. he retired with a good pension and benefits at age 62. He will be 93 next month, meaning that Martin has paid him NOT TO WORK longer than it paid him to work.

Everyone can easily see how that is a problem.

Dairy has been a failing industry for decades yet the farmers keep on ignoring it and pump more money into it. We enjoy Land of Lakes products but at the end of the day it’s free enterprise that dictates who survives and who doesn’t.

all i buy.

http://ci.falfurrias.tx.us/index.php/about-us2/history/falfurrias-butter

Bunch of pussy ass liberal kids fugging it up for everybody over 40. "Beyond" meat..... Stupid fuggs need a "beyond" foot in the ass. They start dicking with booze, It's gonna be go time.

i eat butter on everything, but only drink buttermilk.

That only works with Mad Magazine!

Yep, Dairy price supports keep the industry alive. Without that welfare they would have to change drastically.

And there it is.........

Your father, at 93, is far from an average pensioner.

Lets take the principle contributions, and add 50 years of compounded interest......and then call it, "bad debt".

it's the unions fault.....

Knew this thread would go there.

My sone Chas was ready to buy some Beans Food stock. He called a few minutes ago and was glad he didn't. Maybe now a little investment would be a good profit. I drink a lot of milk and only whole milk . We use only butter. Being from Wisconsin , we eat a lot of dairy products.

Land O Lakes changed the box. The old box had her knees showing. I think they changed the box because they didn't want people folding the box to do this.

It was Boobs.

Yeah, the old box you could see her teepee.

Since last year when i got altered i have been eating their butter.

Stomach that they made for me don't like oleo.

If they don't make it out i guess we will have to find another supplier.

London’s Dairy was a staple in MI not so long ago.

Dean foods bought a local company here Roddenberry's 15 years ago and shut it down

Oleo isn't food. It's plastic.

Yep that's why i can't eat it .

I used to eat butter but with two kids we got out of eating it.

Was a while before i got the taste back.

Nothing better than hot cornbread with butter.

Dean's milk crates are the pefect seat for use in a permanent-built deer stand. Bring a foam pad and youre good for several hours.

Also great for puttin my car wash supplies in inside my cars and trucks.

👍

Although I love dairy (we used to have one), I have become lactose intolerant over the years.
Thank the scientists for Lactaid, though!!!!

Exactly.

On the other hand, lots of companies took the route of "We will pay you less today, but promise to pay you in retirement."

They liked the system well for the first thirty years, but cry when the chickens come home to roost. Lots of pension plans would be in great shape, had the funds not been raided for corporate profits at times in the past. But hell, the same could be said for Social Security.

hahahahaha

Don't misunderstand me, I am sorry to hear that they are having difficulties. However, it is not all doom and gloom for dairy farmers, feed suppliers, retailers, truck drivers, etc., etc. People will still drink milk, use butter, etc. Cows will still need to be fed, etc., etc. The difference is that Dean Foods, as such, may not be the company producing it. Some other company will take over the market supply that Dean furnished. Sure, there will be some adjustments here and there, but there is not going to be a permanent void of supply of dairy products that were formerly produced by Dean Foods. Someone else will supply the products to meet the market demands. Unfortunately, some Dean employees and contractors/suppliers will be adversely effected, but the industry as a whole will not be devastated.

The industry as a whole has already been devastated' New York and Pennsylvania have lost tens of thousands of jobs. Families have lost their farms, and their way of life.

Over five years, Pennsylvania loses 6,000 farms. The latest U.S. Department of Agriculture census makes obvious what many in the industry already suspected: Pennsylvania is losing farms. More than 6,000 closed between 2012 and 2017. Lancaster County lost more than 500 farms, about a 10% drop

Maybe if their prices were competitive? Aren't here and there's no secret to making good butter.

Land O' Lakes is the only product Dean Foods sells here, butter and I think sour cream.



If casebook studies have any truth to them vertical integration is risky if you have good suppliers. You make more money by devoting your resources to what you do best. For Walmart that's marketing. So either Walmart's stupid or Dean Foods wasn't meeting Walmart's needs. (But I don't know. That's what they teach you in school.)

Walmart sucks for the mark it is going to leave on the evolution of business and trade in this country but in the end it's the consumer that controls everything.

No one is forcing anyone to support Walmart and it's products.
I've not shadowed the door of a Walmart in many, many years.

WOW... I grew up on a dairy/industrial hog farms... smell don't scare me none... probably why my sniffer is not as good as it once was.

BINGO... but it is so much easier to blame WMT... lmfao

Look at where the stock market is at, if those pensions had been funded even quarterly and not used as loan collateral there would be more than enough profits made during a working mans lifetime fund his pension, lets face it some where down the line the money was stolen by bean counters , lawyers and upper management !

And that is reality.
Poor management is what drives a company out of business, gotta hang onto your market and keep up with the times.

In all reality how does a 94 year old company become saddled in debt? Piss poor management, that's how ! There have been crimes committed and taxes evaded for any of this to happen.

The dairy industry has been a victim of the medical/pharma cartels propaganda.





Same here.

When I move up north in a couple of years, I'm joining a dairy co-op where I can get raw milk. I'll be making my own butter and buttermilk too.

Lot's of dairy farms have gone under here over the past few years. Some of them had been in business a long time too. The ones that have survived have done so solely by cutting their costs to the bone, and practically working for free, hoping for a turnaround.

I've never understood the hatred that some people have for Walmart. We're not ever going back to the mom and pop stores, or the little country store that was in every small settlement. Times have change, and if we are to get along with the program, we have to change to whether we like it or not.

I have never stepped foot in a Walmart, fortunately I make enough money that I don’t have to shop there.

I skipped to the end, and maybe this has been addressed, but how is this Walmarts fault? My wife and I drink a lot of milk, and I buy it at places other that Walmart, because Walmart does not carry the brand that I like. All in all, milk is not as good as it used to be, and I figure it is because they remove all of the butterfat, and then replace what they want to make the milk as they want it. All that processing can't be good for the taste. I know that I get a lot of milk from different brands with off tastes. Some brands are worse than others. Big companies have the idea that they can do as they like for the bottom line, and ignore what the customer wants. It usually come to bite them in the long run. miles

I couldn't possibly agree more....

How Walmart has wielded its market power to change the face of American industry and lower labor standards in the retail sector




1. Buying billions of goods that weren’t made in America.
The vast majority of merchandise Walmart sells in the U.S. is manufactured abroad. The company searches the world for the cheapest goods possible, and this usually means buying from low-wage factories overseas. Walmart boasts of direct relationships with nearly 20,000 Chinese suppliers,4 and purchased $27 billion worth of Chinese-made goods in 2006.5 According to the Economic Policy Institute, Walmart’s trade with China alone eliminated 133,000 U.S. manufacturing jobs between 2001 and 2006 and accounted for 11.2 percent of the nation’s total job loss due to trade.6 But China is hardly the only source of Walmart goods: the company also imports from Bangladesh, Honduras, Cambodia, and a host of other countries.

2. Pushing U.S. companies to move their factories overseas.
With $419 billion in annual net sales, Walmart’s market power is so immense that the even the largest suppliers must comply with its demands for lower and lower prices because they cannot afford to have their goods taken off its shelves. Companies that used to manufacture products in the United States, from Levi’s jeans to lock maker Master Lock, were pressured to shut their U.S. factories and moved manufacturing abroad to meet Walmart’s demand for low prices.7

3. Making it easier for other U.S. retailers to buy from foreign factories.
Walmart was a leader in sourcing goods overseas, establishing a centralized purchasing system, technological infrastructure, and linkages to foreign factories that other companies imitated and built on. While researchers find that Walmart still imports disproportionately more goods than other apparel retailers,8 its innovations accelerated the use of offshore suppliers by its competitors, speeding the loss of American manufacturing jobs.

4. Forcing layoffs among its U.S. suppliers.
Even when Walmart products are made in the United States, manufacturing jobs still get eliminated as suppliers cut costs to meet Walmart’s demands for low prices. A spokesman for the National Knitwear and Sportswear Association noted that producing goods for Walmart “forces domestic manufacturers to compete, often unrealistically, with foreign suppliers who pay their help pennies on the hour.”9 A Walmart spokesperson admitted that this was the point of the company’s efforts to buy domestic goods: “one of our big objectives was to put the heat on American manufacturers to lower prices.”10 Even as manufacturing costs increase, Walmart demands that suppliers’ prices go even lower, a dynamic that helped push Kraft Foods to plan the closure of 39 factories and lay off 13,500 workers.11

5. Promoting domestic sweatshops.
Layoffs aren’t the only way manufacturers contrive to meet the low prices Walmart demands. Walmart’s domestic suppliers lower wages, cut benefits, aggressively fight employee efforts to unionize and bargain collectively, and skimp on worker comfort and safety. For example, Louisiana seafood processor C.J.’s Seafood, which sells an estimated 85 percent of its processed crawfish to Walmart, has recently come under scrutiny for allegedly abusing employees working in the U.S. on temporary immigrant visas (known as guestworker visas).12 A complaint to the U.S. Department of Labor claims that the Walmart supplier “engaged in extremely coercive employment related actions, including forcing guestworkers to work up to 24-hour shifts with no overtime pay, locking guestworkers in the plant to force them to continue to work, threatening the guestworkers with beatings to make them work faster, and threatening violence against the guestworkers’ families in Mexico after workers contacted law enforcement for assistance.”13

6. Squeezing U.S. manufacturers out of business.
Walmart’s unrelenting push for low prices eats into the profit margins of its U.S. suppliers, often weakening companies in the process. Journalist Charles Fishman provides a vivid example: Walmart provided 30 percent of Vlasic Pickles’ overall business and insisted that if the company did not allow Walmart to sell a gallon jar of pickles for the ruinously low price of $2.97, they would stop buying Vlasic’s other products. “The pickle maker had spent decades convincing consumers that they should pay a premium for its brand. Now Walmart was practically giving them away.”14 According to Fishman, Vlasic’s profit margin from pickles shrunk 25 percent or more. Nor is Vlasic alone in seeing its business cannibalized by Walmart: of the top ten companies supplying Walmart in 1994, four sought bankruptcy protection by 2006.15

7. Discouraging American innovation.
By squeezing its suppliers, Walmart leaves companies without the resources to make new investments in research and development. And once companies become dependent on Walmart as a massive purchaser, their greatest incentive is to keep producing the products Walmart has decided to sell, making it unnecessary and unprofitable to innovate.

8. Driving competitors to squeeze manufacturing.
If discount retailers like Target and Kmart want to remain competitive with Walmart, they must demand similarly low prices from suppliers. As a result, the pressures pushing down costs and propelling the elimination of American manufacturing jobs are magnified.

9. Lobbying for policies that make it easier to move U.S. jobs overseas.
According to the non-profit Center for Responsive Politics, Walmart spent $7.8 million on lobbying in 2011 alone.16 While this money was paid to influence a range of legislation, from promoting corporate tax cuts to opposing a bill to guarantee paid sick time to working people, trade policy was among the issues Walmart lobbied on most aggressively. In fact, Walmart has lobbied to make it easier to push American jobs out of the country for years, playing a key role in in lobbying for NAFTA in the early 1990s.17

10. Making growing inequality the accepted norm
Walmart has set the template for today’s economy: one in which increased economic productivity is not shared with working people, and the vast inequality that this creates is seen as normal. Today the six members of the Walton family who inherited the Walmart fortune enjoy wealth equal to that of the least-wealthy 30 percent of Americans combined.18 These billionaires are the ultimate beneficiaries of Walmart’s push to cut costs, condemning retail employees to work in poverty and American factory workers to unemployment.

Walmart is the nation’s largest employer and one of America’s most profitable companies, netting $15.7 billion in profits in 2011.19 With the great resources at its disposal, Walmart could afford to take the high road, supporting good manufacturing jobs in America by allowing for higher wages and more investment in its supply chain and paying its own employees – from retail “associates” to warehouse workers and cleaning contractors – a living wage. That would set the template for a new American economy, one in which Americans might once again “make things” and also find greater dignity and stability in selling them.

1. Demos calculations based on data from the Bureau of Labor Statistics.
2. John Nichiols, “Supreme Court Decides That Walmart's a 'Too-Big-for-Justice' Corporation,” The Nation, June 20, 2011. Citing independent market research group, IBIS World.
3. “Living Below the Line,” Wide Opportunities for Women (2011). http://www.wowonline.org/documents/WOWUSBESTLivingBelowtheLine2011.pdf
4. “Walmart China Factsheet,” Walmart Corporation, http://www.wal-martchina.com/english/walmart/index.htm.
5. Nelson Lichtenstein, The Retail Revolution: How Wal-Mart Created a Brave New World of Business. Metropolitan Books: 2009. p 159.
6. Robert E. Scott, “The Wal-Mart Effect,” Economic Policy Institute, 2007.http://www.epi.org/publication/ib235/.
7. For an account of this history, see: Charles Fishman, “The Wal-Mart You Don’t Know,” Fast Company, December 1st, 2003, http://www.fastcompany.com/magazine/77/walmart.html
8. Emek Basker and Pham Hoang Van, “Wal-Mart as Catalyst to U.S.-China Trade,” working paper, Department of Economics, University of Missouri, Columbia, MO, 2007. http://economics.missouri.edu/working-papers/2007/WP0710_basker.pdf.
9. Nelson Lichtenstein, The Retail Revolution: How Wal-Mart Created a Brave New World of Business. Metropolitan Books: 2009. p 158.
10. Nelson Lichtenstein, The Retail Revolution: How Wal-Mart Created a Brave New World of Business. Metropolitan Books: 2009. p 157.
11. Barry Lynn, “Breaking the chain: The antitrust case against Wal-Mart,” Harper’s Magazine, July 2006. http://www.harpers.org/archive/2006/07/0081115.
12. Richard Rainey, “Striking guest workers from Breaux Bridge crawfish plant protest Sam's Club in Metairie,” Times-Picayune. June 06, 2012. http://www.nola.com/business/index.ssf/2012/06/striking_guest_workers_from_br.html
13. Jennifer J. Rosenbaum, “Complaint To The Wage And Hour Division: Violations of The Fair Labor Standards Act And H-2B Regulations By CJL Enterprises, Inc. Dba CJ’s Seafood and Michael Leblanc,” National Guestworker Alliance, June 2012. http://www.guestworkeralliance.org/wp-content/uploads/2012/06/CJL_DOL-complaint.pdf
14. Charles Fishman, “The Wal-Mart You Don’t Know,” Fast Company, December 1st, 2003, http://www.fastcompany.com/magazine/77/walmart.html
15. Barry Lynn, “Breaking the chain: The antitrust case against Wal-Mart,” Harper’s Magazine, July 2006, http://www.harpers.org/archive/2006/07/0081115.
16. “Lobbying: Wal-Mart Stores Summary 2011,” Center for Responsive Politics, http://www.opensecrets.org/lobby/clientsum.php?id=D000000367&year=2011.
17. Bethany Moreton, To Serve God and Wal-Mart: The Making of Christian Free Enterprise. Harvard University Press: 2009.
18. Sylvia Allegretto, “The few, the proud, the very rich;” The Berkley Blog, UC Berkley, December 5th, 2011, http://blogs.berkeley.edu/2011/12/05/the-few-the-proud-the-very-rich/.
19. See CNN’s Fortune 500 list http://money.cnn.com/magazines/fortune/fortune500/2012/snapshots/2255.html

All sobering comments. But what a terribly misleading subject line! I wonder if someone who livess at 1600 Pennsylvania Ave. might have something to say about this?

LOL.......This just might win "Post Of The Year." Or, "Lie Of The Year."

Hatred of Walmart beyond reason, ranks right up there with Trump hatred. People hate them both without knowing the facts. miles

The only reason to hate Walmart is the scabby people who fill the isles.

And yet you have cities full of them. miles

It"s good to have options. we're not allowed to date our relatives over here.

Hey! Stop this at once!


No Walmart bashing............Walmart was sent by God.


Being a Walmart employee is 98% of most of America's retirement plan.



That and maybe a bunch of Govt stuff paid for by the others at Walmart.

I do think that the Soy-Almond juice/milk argument is sort of like blaming your loss on the Third Party.



There are three cartons of Soy Almond Juice Milk on the shelves.


100 gallons of Milk.

Oh it's easy to hare big box stores, not just Walmart. I live in a little town of maybe 3,000 on a good day, if you hold your mouth right while counting. We used to have a Hometown Shopko. I suspect it was profitable as the next department store was 60 miles down the Interstate. Walmart, Costco etc. But Shopko went down all over because of big box stores. So now if you want a new toothbrush it's either a dollar store or drive 60 miles.

You could always go with UPS/FEDEXWALMART


Its owned by the Benevolent Overlord Jeff Bezos. He loves passing minimum wage laws because he was forced to increase his minimum wage.


Might as well force others to increase their overhead if you have the money power and senators.

I became allergic to cow's milk about 10 years ago, am also allergic to soy. So, my only choice is almond milk as rice milk is like colored water. Now I buy Land-O-Lakes canola oil mixed butter. To much cow's milk or ice cream sours on my stomach. I can eat yogurt and frozen yogurt for some reason. Doc said is is a different protein molecule. I am also allergic to tomatoes and peanuts, and wheat. Have to eat rye bread. I get bloated with bread. Tomatoes cause bad heartburn. I grew up eating all of this. If I do eat anything I am allergic to, I have to take two Beano's and an allergy pill. Getting old is not fun.

I went shopping for my wife about a week ago.(Walmart) We needed eggs and butter. For some reason that section was about empty, or so I thought. There were a few boxes of each (Land O'Lakes) and they were about 200% more expensive. I shop just enough to know something was wrong. Looked around and there was another section completely full with a large selection. Land O' Lakes was about hidden and empty. Just seemed strange.

Walmart has partnered with Bloomberg and is helping Bloomberg with his anti gun agenda. Based on their partnering with Bloomberg, why would someone on the fire defend Wally World?