Falling production, retail prices and sales aren’t helping creameries. Manufacturers look to flavors and healthier formulations to revive the category.

Milk processors are finding success with limited-time flavors like mint chocolate chip and birthday cake. A national campaign focusing on protein hopes to keep milk front-and-center on the breakfast table.

Mayfield Dairy Farms manufactures milk for McDonald’s, ice cream for Baskin-Robbins and buttermilk for Cracker Barrel restaurants. The Tennessee-based dairy has expanded to Florida and Louisiana.

How do you make food interactive? (Besides eating it, of course.) Dairy brands turn to social media to encourage consumers to share photos of food on Instagram, Facebook and Twitter.

A regional dairy with national backing – that’s Mayfield Dairy Farms, a unit of dairy powerhouse Dean Foods Co. Mayfield extends its reach with ice cream retailers, while its fluid milk products satisfy consumers and foodservice customers.

What do you do after you make the best cheese in the United States? That’s what I asked Richard Guggisberg of Guggisberg Cheese.

Conveyor systems and robotic palletizers, not people, are moving heavy packages around dairy plants. Robots grab cases and build pallets of dairy products destined for the load-out dock or the warehouse.

There was absolutely no equipment when Nuestro Queso moved into a shuttered cheesemaking facility in Illinois six years ago. As the company continues to grow, it is still buying processing and packaging machines.

The start-up U.S. dairy Nuestro Queso (‘our cheese’ in Spanish) meets the needs of Hispanic buyers on the East Coast and in the Midwest. The company also is building a following for its award-winning products among non-Latinos who appreciate the natural, fresh cheeses.

Those of us in the food industry make, eat, sell or write about food all day long. While we’re surrounded by drinks and snacks, one in seven Americans goes hungry. We can fix that.