A negative adjustment to the skim milk utilization value is made for transportation charges for shipments of unprocessed pool milk between pool plants. In Fiscal Year 2025, the skim milk utilization value was reduced by $592,850 for shipment of 45.6 million pounds of unprocessed pool milk ($1.30/cwt average freight rate). Overall, the adjustment for intrapool milk shipments reduced the value of pool production by approximately $0.32/cwt.

The following chart shows the volume of the intrapool shipments and total transportation charges for each month in Fiscal Year 2025. The charges were primarily driven by shipments from Meadow Gold – Great Falls to Meadow Gold – Billings. Intrapool shipments of unprocessed pool milk also occurred from Meadow Gold – Great Falls to Meadow Gold – Billings, from Meadow Gold - Billings to Darigold - Bozeman, and from Meadow Gold - Great Falls to Darigold - Bozeman. The shipments going to Darigold-Bozeman were mostly from the producer who moved to the Meadow Gold - Billings plant in February 2024. Because of the location of the dairy to the Darigold - Bozeman plant, no intrapool freight costs were charged to the pool. However, these pounds are included in the intrapool shipment pounds.

The following two charts show the monthly volume of sales of surplus milk by pool handlers and the unit price received for surplus milk sales after transportation expenses. All surplus milk sales in Fiscal Year 2025 were Class I packaged with Darigold – Bozeman having the bulk of sales. The average monthly utilization of Class I surplus milk for fiscal year 2025 was 5,686,945 pounds, a decrease of 3.65% from the Fiscal Year 2024 amount of 5,902,229. This can be attributed to the loss of Montana pooling dairies and Darigold – Bozeman losing one of their