Cows Like Candy, Too

Who doesn’t love candy? Head to Lancaster County Pennsylvania and the sweet aroma of candy can be smelled on a family dairy farm. If you look closely enough, yellow and orange freckles of Reese's Pieces can be seen in the cow’s TMR feed, too. Andy Young, General Manager of Red Knob Dairy in Peach Bottom, Pa., says they have been feeding upcycled Hershey candy waste to their cows for more than a decade.

This is the same time that Cargill and The Hershey Company teamed up to share a sustainable mindset. Nearly 35,000 tons of what Cargill refers to as ‘candy meal’ is produced by Cargill and used on approximately 500 farms throughout the Northeast. The two companies have perfected a way to upcycle Hershey’s waste stream, which contains edible bits of chocolate, nuts and licorice, and convert it into a reliable, value-added feed ingredient.

Red Knob’s herd of cows are in fact eating everything from Milk Duds to Payday bars, all of it coming from Hershey plants and broken down into a powder and mixed into Cargill’s feed that is delivered to their farm.

Founded in 1974 and built on the hard work of prior generations, daily operations at Red Knob Farm are now led by the third generation including Andy and David Young as well as Jared Galbreath. The family milks 900 head and raises around 650 head of youngstock.

According to Young, feeding candy meal is a cost-effective and sustainable way to add protein, sugars, and fat to the cow’s diet, replacing molasses or other sources of sugars in feed. The idea that his cows help prevent this byproduct from ending up in the landfill is comforting to the Youngs.

“We aim to reuse everything we can,” Young says. “Whether it’s food or water or manure.”

A representative from Cargill says that by upcycling the candy byproduct, the program has contributed to Hershey's zero-waste-to-landfill goal while supporting local dairy farmers in Pennsylvania and the Mid-Atlantic region. Today, Cargill has an entire plant dedicated to the intake and processing of candy meal.

One might wonder if candy is actually good for cows. The fact is sweets, like Hershey chocolate, are a good source of sugar.

According to Dr. Mac Campbell, dairy technical specialist at Cargill, "Candy Meal is an excellent source of energy to support milk production and milk fat synthesis. Also, Candy Meal reduces risk of rumen digestive upset compared to some other carbohydrate sources such as starch. Dairy nutrition formulation software, such as the Cargill Dairy MAX system, pulls the right ingredients in the right amounts to optimize both the nutrition for the cow and the cost for the dairy owner.”

Young says that sourcing the upcycled Hershey candy is easier compared to other options, and more cost-effective, too.

“The candy meal got drawn in incrementally,” Young explains. “And it provided the right nutrients at the right price point that we wanted.”

At the end of the day, Young says feeding candy is a win for all those involved.

“Farmers are the original sustainability experts,” he says. “Taking the milk from dairy cows to make milk chocolate and seeing now that waste stream cycle back again is totally consistent with dairy’s long history of sustainability cycles.”