Healthful Initiative

Dairy Field, Oct 2004

Dairy checkoff launches new 3-A-Day of Dairy weight-loss campaign.

With the help of a nutrition study on dairy's role in weight management recently published in Obesity Research, a leading scientific journal, dairy producers have launched an integrated 3-A-Day of Dairy weight-loss marketing and nutrition education effort funded by the national dairy checkoff program.

The study shows that when, cutting calories to lose weight, three servings of milk, cheese or yogurt each day actually help people burn more fat and lose more weight than just cutting calories alone. In early September, the dairy checkoff launched an integrated program that leverages numerous dairy manufacturing, retail and health professional partners to educate the public and increase the consumption of dairy products.

The 3-A-Day of Dairy program includes retail promotions, national television and print advertising, Internet communications, public relations and health professional educational outreach.

"The ability to show the public that three servings of milk, cheese and yogurt as a part of a calorie-restricted diet helps with weight loss is a tremendous opportunity for dairy producers and the entire dairy industry," says Paul Rovey, an Arizona dairy producer and chairman of Dairy Management Inc. (DMI), the organization that manages the national dairy producer checkoff.

The cornerstone of the program is a new 3-A-Day of Dairy logo that highlights the new weight-loss benefit associated with milk, cheese and yogurt products. It incorporates the existing 3-A-Day logo along with the claim "burn more fat, lose weight" and a context statement to further explain the science.

Currently, 3-A-Day of Dairy retailer and branded dairy manufacturing partners are using the logo on qualified milk, cheese and yogurt packaging, instore promotional signs, newspaper feature ads, direct mailers and other merchandising support.