GRANTVILLE, Pa. — Just weeks after the Whole Milk for Healthy Kids Act was signed into law and new 2025-2030 Dietary Guidelines for Americans (DGAs) were released, 30 dairy farmers, processors, and checkoff and industry representatives gathered Tuesday evening, Feb. 3, to explore what those changes mean, and hear about checkoff’s position as “implementation partner.”

Dr. Katie Brown, president of National Dairy Council (NDC) and executive vice president of DMI, was a keynote speaker during the Dairy Forum on the eve of the Pennsylvania Dairy Summit in Grantville.

“After decades of mixed signals, this is a turning point,” she said. “For the first time, whole-fat dairy foods have an official invitation and a place at the table as part of a healthy diet.”

New Guidelines have come out every five years since the mid-1980s; however, for the first time, they were unveiled in a big way at a White House press event, with leadership from USDA, HHS, FDA, NIH and CMS all present.

Brown said this is a signal that food and nutrition policy is now a cross-agency health priority.

The guidelines open with a simple message: Eat real food. Brown said she did a deep dive into the supporting documentation and highlighted several things:

• Dairy remains a distinct food group, with a recommended goal of three servings per day.
• What’s new is the explicit inclusion of full-fat dairy as part of healthy dietary patterns, alongside a broader emphasis on protein, healthy fats and minimally processed foods.
• Protein recommendations increased to roughly 1½ to 2 times previous levels, reinforcing dairy’s role as a high-quality, nutrient-dense protein source.
• Fermented dairy foods, including kefir and yogurt, are highlighted for gut and metabolic health.
• Healthy fats are no longer framed primarily as something to limit, but something to include, particularly when they come from whole foods, including dairy.
• Full-fat dairy foods with no added sugar are specifically recognized across life stages, from childhood brain development to muscle maintenance in older adults.
• What could be confusing is the 2025-30 Guidelines did not remove prior saturated fat language, but worded it as follows: “In general, saturated fat consumption should not exceed 10% of total daily calories. Significantly limiting highly processed foods will help meet this goal. More high-quality research is needed to determine which types of dietary fats best support long-term health.”

“No other food group gets this level of recognition across the lifespan,” Brown said about dairy.

She was careful, however, to frame the shift not as a narrow endorsement of whole milk alone, but as a broader reset for dairy “across the fat spectrum.” Throughout her remarks, Brown repeatedly emphasized “dairy at all fat levels,” positioning whole milk as the headline change, but not the whole story.

“This didn’t happen overnight,” she said, pointing to more than 80 peer-reviewed studies on dairy at all fat levels that were funded by checkoff through NDC. She believes this challenged long-held assumptions about milk fat and helped spark scientific interest, leading to more than 600 independent studies about dairy, not funded by checkoff, that further evaluated dairy’s health effects “across the fat spectrum.”

“Today we can confidently talk about dairy foods at all fat levels fitting into healthy eating patterns,” Brown said. “The evidence base is deep, it’s mature, and it’s no longer limited to one type of milk or one narrow definition of health.”

She talked about checkoff’s role in “advancing the implementation.” 

In December, checkoff leadership, including the DMI Board Chair Marilyn Hershey and CEO Barb O’Brien, met with USDA Undersecretary Dudley Hoskins to show how checkoff’s new strategic plan can support and align with the government’s efforts to put the new Dietary Guidelines into action.

She shared that a week before the Forum, she was back in Washington, D.C., meeting with USDA Deputy Undersecretary Patrick Penn and his chief policy officer to discuss “innovative programs and strategies,” linked to school rollout to ensure whole milk implementation works operationally and financially, not just legislatively.

That includes expanding Smart Swaps resources to help districts meet sugar and sodium targets while keeping dairy in meals, and launching pilot programs to demonstrate proof-of-concept to show USDA that “offering whole and 2% milk can meet cost, calorie and compliance standards while maintaining student acceptance.”

Brown described the USDA meetings as alignment, not symbolic visits. She said checkoff is positioning itself as “implementation partner” to bring research, regulatory readiness and programs to implement the new Dietary Guidelines.

The audience grew particularly engaged when the discussion turned to the Whole Milk for Healthy Kids Act. The law allows schools to offer whole, reduced-fat, low-fat, lactose-free and fat-free milk, flavored or unflavored, and it critically excludes the fat in whole milk from the saturated-fat limits used to calculate school meal compliance.

“That exclusion matters,” Brown said. “It acknowledges that dairy fat is different, and it gives schools flexibility they haven’t had in more than a decade.”

(Author’s note: The saturated fat exclusion was something the Grassroots Pennsylvania Dairy Advisory Committee had worked on for eight years against some opposition, finally succeeding in getting it included in the 2023 and 2025 versions of the bill that were voted on by Congress.)

Forum participants wanted to know: What happens next?

Brown said schools are legally allowed to serve whole milk now, but remaining hurdles are operational, including “supply, cost, and student acceptance.”

Processors weighed in.

“We were pleasantly surprised by how many school districts inquired right away,” said Chuck Turner of Turner Dairy Farms, which supplies schools in the Pittsburgh area.

“The easiest place to start is white milk. Whole white milk fits calorie targets and school budgets more easily than whole flavored milk,” he explained.

Turner noted that moving white milk from 1% to whole can be done with minimal cost difference while staying within meal calorie requirements.

Farmers weighed in. Andy Bollinger of Lititz interrupted the discussion to say:

“I just got a text from a friend who doesn’t know I’m in this meeting. He’s telling me his child just had their first whole milk in a Lancaster County school.”

Discussion also centered on sugar limits. Brown pointed out that school milk processors have reduced added sugars in flavored milk for schools to 10 grams per serving, years ahead of the phased-in federal requirements from the previous (Joe Biden) Administration.

“That didn’t happen by accident,” she said. “It took reformulation, innovation, and cooperation across the supply chain.”

Discussion continued about how important it will be to position flavored milk as a nutrient-dense real food and protein source that children enjoy and highlight what processors have already done to reduce the added sugar content so that it remains in good standing as this administration continues looking at added sugars.

For schools struggling to meet future sugar and sodium standards, Brown highlighted the checkoff-supported Smart Swaps program, which provides menu modeling, recipes and training to help schools keep dairy in meals while staying compliant.

One lingering concern raised during the Q&A was school breakfast. As written, the Jan. 14 USDA guidance to implement the Whole Milk for Healthy Kids Act specifically mentions school lunch, not breakfast. This is a technical issue that could complicate things. Brown said it is temporary. She and others shared that more complete USDA guidance is being finalized and is expected to address breakfast too.

Brown closed by linking the policy shifts to broader trends: the explosion of GLP-1 weight-loss drugs, growing skepticism of ultra-processed foods, and renewed interest in nutrient density over calorie counting.

“As people eat less volume, food quality matters more,” she said. “Dairy fits that moment naturally.”

Brown said the next frontier is embedding dairy directly into “real food” and “food as medicine” initiatives. That includes integrating dairy guidance into electronic medical records, patient portals and retail wellness apps, so health professionals and consumers see dairy as part of personalized nutrition advice.

She also pointed to opportunities in digital health platforms and wearables, positioning dairy as a built-in recommendation wherever people track and manage their health.