What is sustainability? This session will introduce the concept of sustainability by providing an overview of industry sustainability programs and a snapshot of recent news reports affirming the benefits of "going green" as a business strategy throughout the food chain. While measuring sustainability was once thought to be impossible, today there are emerging accepted indicators of how to quantify and standardize sustainability. Through his research at the University of Arkansas Applied Sustainability Center, Dr. Jon Johnson is working with companies, including Wal-Mart and Tyson Foods, to establish standards using Life Cycle Analysis. Dr. Johnson will provide interesting insights into how this standard might be applied and what it might mean for the food production industry.

Research shows that the sale of milk through traditional channels--grocery, drug and big box stores--is declining while sales in 'all other channels'--a catch-all category--has increased to approximately 40 percent of all sales. To take the mystery out of 'all other channels', Marketing Expert Doug Adams will unveil the results of his recent research that examines milk sales through convenience stores, schools, food service and other outlets research has ignored until now.