Have you driven a car in your bare feet yet this year, or sat on the deck late into the night? If not you'd better make haste. Summer is fleeting, at least in many of the 50 states.

The big news for the last couple of months has been the new food guide and pyramid. And we're not talking about just in the food business; the mainstream consumer media is all over the story too.

Dairy foods have always made consumers say "yum," but only recently have dairy food packages made them say "Wow!"

WATERLOO, Wis.-Any cheesemaker worth his starter culture will tell you that you can't make good quality cheese without good quality, fresh milk. One of the crucial challenges cheesemakers face is procuring a steady source of milk that arrives at the plant gate in top condition. For most that means maintaining a good relationship with a cooperative, developing a network of farmers, and working with raw milk distributors.

Two news stories in April brought with them a lesson about two different perspectives on the food business-the producer perspective and the consumer perspective.

There's been a lot in the news lately about energy prices and the world's oil supply. Who do you blame, and how do you fix it? The popularity of SUVs might be one part of the problem, the explosive modernization of China, another, but commercial transportation shoulders some blame too. U.S. industry is trucking more materials and product back and forth across the interstates than ever.

When Ronica Tucker and Heather Boyett concocted their first batch of lowfat, vitamin fortified ice cream treats in the fall of 2002, they had no idea that they were violating an unwritten rule of the dairy industry. They also had no idea that it would put them in front of ice cream's latest wave of growth potential. But now they are, if you will pardon the metaphor, ready to surf.

Consolidation was the story of the 1990s in the dairy business, and throughout the food industry-small and medium players gobbled up by a broad vision and a fat check book.

One of the rites of spring for cheesemakers is attending a conference in Wisconsin, and the 2005 Wisconsin Cheese Industry Conference is right around the corner.

Ten years from now those in the industry may look back on 2004 and recall the first time they saw a bright, backlit McDonald's menu board promoting milk in the McDonald's Milk Jug.