Washington

Darigold and Actus Nutrition Partner to Unlock New Value in Specialty Dairy Proteins

Tue, 02 Jun 2026 20:28:30 GMT

The dairy industry is no stranger to volatility, but for Darigold’s member-owners, the last two years have been defined by a focused and necessary transformation. Following a year of intense financial pressure, the cooperative’s new partnership with Actus Nutrition marks a definitive shift toward high-value specialty ingredients and long-term stability.

The 2025 Backdrop: A Season of Sacrifice

To understand the significance of the Actus Nutrition deal, one must look back at the financial squeeze of 2025, when Darigold faced significant headwinds that required difficult decisions. The cooperative implemented a $4.00 per hundredweight deduction from member milk checks — $2.50 of which was earmarked for the construction of a new facility in Pasco, Wash., while $1.50 was used to offset operational losses.

For many family-owned dairies, these deductions created immediate cash-flow challenges. However, leadership maintained these investments were necessary to modernize the cooperative’s footprint and ensure a competitive future.

2026: The Strategic Solution

The partnership with Actus Nutrition, announced in June 2026, appears to be the second act of this recovery plan. By offloading the operational responsibilities of the Jerome, Idaho, milk protein plant to Actus while maintaining the milk supply, Darigold is effectively reducing its operational overhead without losing the market for its members’ milk.

Key components of the deal include:

Jerome, Idaho: Actus Nutrition assumes ownership and operation of the milk protein plant, ensuring the facility stays active and continues to source milk from Darigold’s member-owners.
Sunnyside, Wash.: Darigold retains ownership of the facility but enters a long-term agreement to supply high-value whey products to Actus.
Specialty Focus: The move aligns Darigold with the booming global demand for specialty dairy proteins, a higher-margin sector than traditional fluid milk or commodity products.

“We continue to see strong global demand for high-quality dairy proteins, and this partnership accelerates our ability to meet that demand,” says David Lenzmeier, chief executive officer of Actus Nutrition. “The reliability of Darigold’s manufacturing operations and the quality of its member-owners’ milk make Darigold an excellent partner as we position ourselves to grow with our customers. Together, we are creating a more connected and efficient supply chain that supports innovation and delivers greater value to customers and farmer-owners alike.”  

The Narrative: Building a Leaner, Stronger Cooperative

The story here is one of transformation. In 2025, Darigold asked its farmers-owners to invest in the future during a period of loss. In 2026, the cooperative is delivering on that investment by partnering with a specialty expert like Actus Nutrition.

“Our partnership with Actus Nutrition allows Darigold to maintain focus on our core business of processing our members’ milk and serving our customers here in the Pacific Northwest and around the world while participating in the growing market for specialty protein ingredients,” says Amy Humphreys, president and chief executive officer of Darigold. “This partnership brings specialized expertise that complements our strong capabilities and will deliver long-term value for our member-owners.” 

This move allows Darigold to:

De-risk Operations: By transitioning the Jerome plant to Actus, Darigold reduces its direct manufacturing burden.
Unlock Value: Tapping into Actus’s expertise in specialty proteins allows farmer-owners to participate in premium markets that offer better returns than standard commodities.
Secure the Supply Chain: The long-term commercial agreements provide the one thing dairy farmers value most: a guaranteed, secure home for their milk.

By pivoting from a traditional processor model to a specialized partnership model, Darigold is positioning itself to turn the financial lessons of previous years into a sustainable, value-added future for their Pacific Northwest dairy families.

Washington Grower Shares How To Scale Regenerative Farming

Wed, 04 Dec 2024 17:11:54 GMT

By Deborah Huso

Austin Allred’s family has been farming the Royal Slope region of Washington state between Seattle and Spokane for three generations. He and his two brothers, Derek and Tyson, farm a combined 6,000 acres. They grow potatoes, cherry and apple trees and produce honey, while also running 10,000 beef cattle and milking about 6,000 dairy cows. The family also recently added a worm farm and a beef processing facility.

Like many producers with combined operations, Royal Family Farms focuses on finding a purpose for every acre and every byproduct. In fact, the Allreds have been practicing regenerative farming before it really had its own term.

“My dad was no-tilling before it was billed as regenerative,” Allred explains. “He was doing it to reduce diesel usage. He was also very conscientious about planting woodstock in corners of fields.”

Allred and his siblings took the same approach as they expanded the farm operations.

“I accelerated and defined [what Dad was doing] and put some strategy to it,” Allred says, with the goals of building organic matter in the soil, sequestering carbon and cleaning wastewater.

Royal Family Farms

(Royal Family Farms)

Extended Crop Rotations and Grazing
Allred recognizes the kind of stress agricultural production can put on the land, hence the many inputs required in traditional farming. But Royal Family Farms has demonstrated that not only do regenerative practices work, but one can accomplish them at scale.

“Anytime you’re growing a crop that a human can digest, you’re going to put a lot of pressure on soil,” Allred says. “It’s really hard to do a total no-till strategy. You can’t plant weeds with your wheat.”

Allred says potatoes are the least regenerative crop the farm grows, but says they counteract it by working cattle into a long crop rotation for added soil fertilization.

“If 20% of the ground is in potatoes, that land doesn’t come back online for another six to seven years. And during those years, we do a lot of composting,” he says. “Other years we do cover cropping and planting multispecies crops to grow microbial activity.”

Allred grazes his beef cattle on the cover crops, which provides feed while simultaneously adding more soil amendments, such as nitrogen (N) and phosphorus (P).

Upcycling Everything
Nothing goes to waste at Royal Family Farms. The Allreds work with all the processors who clean and box their apples and turn their potatoes into French fries to retrieve all of the products that don’t qualify for human consumption to be upcycled into protein, as Allred explains it, providing food for their cattle in the form of potato culls or damaged fruit or nutrient-rich compost for their fields. Meanwhile any wood chips produced when the Allreds retire a cherry or apple orchard is either turned into cattle bedding, used for the worm farm or processed into biochar, a carbon-rich byproduct.

The Allreds’ interest in biochar, a charcoal-like substance derived from organic waste, developed out of a desire to bring more carbon into agricultural systems. And for the past few months, Royal Family Farms has used four machines to burn wood chips into charcoal that, when mixed with compost, recharges carbon in the soil.

“As farmers, we are selling off carbon, whether it’s beef, milk or cherries,” Allred says. “Seventy to 80% of retired apple, cherry and pear trees in Washington were getting burned at the end of their effective life. Biochar was a way to bring in more carbon and upcycle and compost it.”

“We try to upcycle every byproduct into something of value,” Allred says. “Eventually it all becomes a soil amendment. It’s only a loss if we let that carbon into the air.”

Reusing Wastewater With Worms
Water is a critical part of any farming operation, and Royal Family Farms sought out a better way to
filter wastewater from their dairy operations and reuse it. What was their regenerative solution? Worms.

“We started investing in what is now the biggest worm farm in the world about eight years ago,” Allred says.

Working with a company called BioFiltro headquartered in Santiago, Chile, the Allreds’ worm farm includes eight acres of what looks like 5'-deep swimming pools. These pools are able to serve as the home for about 50 million worms at any one time.

“Wood chips make up the medium they live in, and that’s also the filter for the dirty water,” Allred explains. “The dairy is designed to flow to a low spot, where we have two 5,000-gallon vacuums that bring the wastewater to the worms.”

The worms digest the wastewater, removing heavy metals and other contaminants. The waste matter the worms produce is rich in microbials, and the Allreds take the worm castings and mix them with compost to produce nutrient-dense soil.

Royal Family Farms

(Royal Family Farms)

Eliminating Waste and Need for Inputs
Allred says engaging in regenerative practices large-scale required careful consideration of how everything could work together.

“We started integrating vegetable, fruit, protein and bees to get to the next generation of regeneration,” he explains. Allred points out that the digestive systems of cattle along with biochar create compost. “It’s all about upcycling ‘waste’ products.”

The result of instituting these practices is dramatically reduced reliance on inputs.

“This year we used no phosphorus and potassium and had equal to or greater yields without it,” Allred remarks. “And across the board, we have better quality.”

He adds the farm’s greatest payout is not having to input synthetics.

“The more natural systems we have in play, the more nutrients we keep in the loop, the less we have to go get inputs,” he says.

Allred acknowledges farmers can filter water through mechanical or chemical systems, but says natural systems are typically cheaper to implement.

“Natural investments are always going to have a long-term return on investment,” Allred says. “The problem is producers often don’t have the margin to always be investing in long-term ROI.”

Royal Family Farms’ regenerative farming practices offer payoffs 10 to 15 years out, Allred estimates.

“We’ve bridged that gap with carbon credits and vertically integrating to pick up those margins,” he says.

This year Royal Family Farms is starting to see its regenerative operations pay off in a big way.

“We purchased 90% less phosphorus and potassium [K] than we have in the past and significantly less nitrogen,” Allred says. “We’re working on nitrogen for the next five years because ruminants make P and K.”

“Regenerative farming starts to gobble up the biggest expenses any farm is going to pay — your fertilizer bill and your chemical bill,” he says. “On the cattle side, your feed bill is your biggest expense. Regenerative farming gives you higher-quality, local food.”

No one knows better than you that the future of your farm depends on balancing practices and profits that sustain your land, resources and family . The stakes are evolving based on weather patterns, technology, market demand and more. What actions are you taking to remain resilient?

Coldstream Farm Was "Green Before Green was Cool"

Mon, 05 Aug 2024 21:03:02 GMT

Situated in a scenic valley of the Cascade mountains in Deming, Washington, Coldstream Farms is aptly named for the river that runs side to side in many spots throughout the farm’s locations along the highway.

The farm is home to 1800 milking cows, and three generations of the Jeff and Vickie Rainey family are involved in various capacities. Their daughter Laura, and son-in-law Galen Smith have become the majority owners, with the four Smith sons each finding their own niche on the farm.

Coldstream Farm

(Coldstream Farm)

For over a decade already, Galen Smith has been saying they were “green before green was cool.” And it’s true: Coldstream Farm is well-known for their sustainability efforts: millions of dollars invested in manure and nutrient management, soil health, recycling water, energy efficient lighting and fans, and the list goes on.

“I always think of it as a three-legged stool,” Smith says. “One circle is the environment and sustainability, another is people and animals, and the last one is the financial part of all that. When we can draw those three circles and there’s that little center portion that comes together, those are the projects we’re looking for.”

Smith sees a lot of opportunities out there that fit the bill for their well-rounded definition of sustainable decisions and projects. “If we’re not looking for those opportunities to better our farm, our animal husbandry, our feed or our people, we’re gonna get lost in the past and lose that competitiveness,” he says.

Coldstream Farm

(Coldstream Farm)

But it’s more than a competitive drive that keeps the wheels turning for those forward-thinking projects. For Smith, it’s the right thing to do.

“If we’re not doing things right: taking care of the land, our employees, what’s left for the next generation?” he says. “We don’t have to do these things. But we feel to take care of the land is what continually provides for our financial returns, and especially our people.

Coldstream Farm

(Coldstream Farm)

“So my reason for sustainability and trying to be financially viable is if we’re doing things right and we enjoy what we do, we’re making money and having fun, why wouldn’t the family want to be a part of it?” Smith adds. “They don’t have to come back and be the one milking or breeding or operating the tractor. There are so many other things in agriculture today, they can bring fresh ideas back to the farm.”

Coldstream Farm

(Coldstream Farm)

The “why” that’s rooted in family and a passionate, sensible sense of success is one that will undoubtedly continue to drive the farm forward. It creates an even more constructive lens for every decision, where anything that wears out is not only replaced but also upgraded for long-term profitability and efficiency.

Smith says this all stems from a foundation that was laid early on, with careful succession planning in the first generation. “I have to really highly commend my father-in-law. He had a vision of this farm continuing on, and he realized that in order for a transition to happen, we needed to be open and transparent. For me going from one percent ownership to 75, there was a path for that, and I could see it.”

Coldstream Farm

(Coldstream Farm)

Seeing plans for the dairy laid out for the future, and having raised four kids on the farm, Smith welcomes new opportunities with every season. “Part of that is seeing my own seasons, coming in as a young guy, maturing and trying to drive this for a while.

“I want my family to be involved and be part of it, because that’s probably more rewarding to me than anything else: spending time with my family, doing something we’re passionate about and having a financial return.

“When we can be successful, be good parents, have a group of employees that are dedicated and positive about what’s going on here, it’s just a huge win. We have to weather the storms in agriculture, which kind of bring those stresses from time to time, but I would not want to be doing anything different.”

Coldstream Farm

(Coldstream Farm)

Now in Effect: New Permanent Heat Rules for Washington State Outdoor Workers

Mon, 17 Jul 2023 13:30:00 GMT

With the exclusion of firefighters and other personnel responding to emergencies, the Washington State Department of Labor and Industries (L&I) is now issuing a permanent heat rule effective July 17 for outdoor workers. This comes after two years of temporary emergency rules focusing on the well-being of outdoor workers. The goal is to address minimum requirements to prevent heat-related illness and reduce traumatic injuries for outdoor workers associated with heat exposure.

The new rule encourages “cool-down rest periods” that requires employers to provide cool water and shade when temperatures are above 80 degrees. The requirements also include workers being able to take paid rest breaks, as needed, and for workers who are either new or returning to work after being absent for more than a week to have time to acclimate to the heat. This means those workers would need to be monitored by other workers.

Temps over 100 degrees require breaks every 15 minutes of every hour and temperatures over 90 would require paid rest breaks for 10 minutes for every two hours. The law also requires employers to always offer “suitably cool” drinking water to their workers and provide access to shade at all times when workers are present.

Edgar Franks, political director for independent farmworker union Familias Unidas por la Justicia, said, “For us, it’s still in a danger zone when you’re asking workers to work in 90 or 100 degrees.”

The Washington Farm Bureau wrote that L&I is pinning “excessive responsibility” on the employer, as well as “overestimat[ing] the benefits of the new rule and underestimat[ing] the cost.”

For the full details that outline the rules for Safety Standards for agriculture, as adopted under the Washington Industrial Safety and Health Act of 1973, go to Agriculture, Chapter 296-307, WAC

Darigold to Build New Milk Production Facility in Washington

Fri, 09 Sep 2022 18:12:04 GMT

Darigold recently broke ground on a new production facility located in Pasco, Wash. The co-op currently operates 11 milk production plants throughout the Northwest, with the 12th plant slated to open in early 2024.

“The Pasco project represents our third major capital investment in as many years, the largest investment in our co-op’s 104-year-history, and a significant step in an ongoing strategy to expand and modernize Darigold,” said Joe Coote, the co-op’s chief executive officer, in a press release. “We are a beloved heritage brand with deep roots in Washington and around the Pacific Northwest, but there’s still considerable opportunity for us to leverage industry growth – here at home and around the world – to become a top-tier global dairy producer. This facility will play an important role in helping us achieve that vision.”

The $600 million facility will process approximately 8 million pounds of milk per day when fully operational from more than 100 dairy farms in surrounding communities. The Pasco facility will be outfitted with two specialized milk dryers and two packaging lines for powdered milk products, two butter churns, two bulk butter packaging lines and five consumer butter packaging lines.

“The growth of the dairy sector both domestically and internationally presents an opportunity for our dairy farmers,” said Allan Huttema, chairman of Darigold’s board of directors and operator of Almar Dairy in Parma, Idaho. “Dairy farmers in the Pacific Northwest have a unique opportunity to benefit from global demand for dairy, which is rising considerably faster than it is domestically. This region is ideally suited to producing high-quality, nutritious dairy and our proximity to global shipping infrastructure makes it more efficient to access international markets.”

When fully operational, the facility will have the capacity to produce some 175 million pounds of butter per year, and nearly 280 million pounds of powdered milk products annually, including products that meet the highest industry specifications for use in the most sensitive applications such as infant formula. The facility’s proximity to rail lines and global shipping ports will help the co-op realize transportation efficiencies for products going to both domestic and global customers.

“The dairy industry continues to be a key driver of the region’s agricultural sector,” said Coote. “By adding capacity through this facility, we stand to share the bounty of Northwest dairy with more consumers at home and around the globe, and build more value for the family farmers who own our co-op. That’s something that should be easy for all of us in the PNW to stand behind.”