Overview

The Midwest Dairy Foods Research Center (MDFRC) is a collaborative effort between dairy farmers and land-grant universities with a mission of providing responsive, agile, thorough and comprehensive product research, and for dairy processing students. This website provides information for dairy products researchers, manufacturers, and academia.

Our purpose is to increase the long-term survival and growth of the U.S. dairy industry, ensure its future competitiveness, and develop expertise in dairy foods research.

These will be accomplished through research projects and outreach programs with dairy foods that are important to the dairy and food industry.

Dairy farmers, please visit the Midwest Dairy website for information on this and many other checkoff-funded programs.

We are a National Dairy Center

The Midwest Dairy Foods Research Center is part of the National Dairy Foods Research Center Program that is sponsored and coordinated through the National Dairy Council.

Six dairy centers help dairy, food, and beverage manufacturers develop new products, ingredients, processes, and introduce new packaging technologies.

MDFRC Member Universities

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Producer Representatives

  • Matt Schelling,
    Midwest Dairy Association, Iowa Farmer Rep
  • Mary Temme,
    Midwest Dairy Association, Nebraska Farmer Rep
  • Anthony Anderson,
    Midwest Dairy Association, Minnesota Farmer Rep
  • Karen Kasper,
    Midwest Dairy Association, Minnesota Farmer Rep
  • Tom Walsh,
    Midwest Dairy Association, Minnesota Farmer Rep

Dairy Promotion Groups

  • Bill Graves,
    Sr. Vice President of Product Research, National Dairy Council
  • Rohit Kapoor,
    Vice President of Product Research, National Dairy Council
  • Hari Meletharayil
    Vice President of Product Research, National Dairy Council
  • Molly Pelzer,
    CEO, Midwest Dairy
  • Sidney Herr,
    Research & Innovations Manager, Midwest Dairy
  • Mitch Schulte,
    Vice President of Agriculture Affairs, Midwest Dairy
  • Emil Nashed,
    Executive Vice President of Research and Product Development, Dairy Management, Inc.

University Members

  • Dr. Laura Dunn Jolly,
    Dean of Human Services, Iowa State University
  • Dr. Daniel Robison, 
    Dean of Agriculture and Life Sciences, Iowa State University
  • Dr. Joseph Cassady, 
    Dean, College of Agriculture, Food and Environmental Sciences, South Dakota State University
  • Dr. Brian Buhr,
    Dean, College of Food, Agriculture, and Natural Resources Sciences, University of Minnesota