Episode 108 Transcription:

Intro commercial: [00:00:00] For one part of the supply chain to be successful, everyone has to be. My superpower is practical application of data and analysis. I believe firmly that Jacoby’s success is because we help our suppliers and our buyers be successful.

I’m Mike Brown, and I love working for T.C. Jacoby & Co. because I get to help people make their businesses more successful.

Ted Jacoby III: Coming up on The Milk Check.

Josh White: Have any of you ever tried stand-up comedy?

No. Not on purpose.

Ted Jacoby III: Welcome to the Milk Check from T.C. Jacoby & Co., your complete guide to dairy markets, from the milking parlor to the supermarket shelf. I’m Ted Jacoby. Let’s dive in.

Ted Jacoby III: This week, we have Tim the Dairy Farmer with us.

Tim, it’s great to have you with us. Thanks for joining us today.

Tim Moffett: Thanks, Ted. It’s good to be back. I don’t know if you guys lost a bet and this was part of your deal to fulfill the contract, but yeah, everybody, I’m a comedian, I’m a dairy farmer just like many of you that are probably listening to this. So, let’s see what happens.

Ted Jacoby III: Tim, I don’t think you’re gonna feel too far out of your element, because anybody who’s been trying to predict dairy markets lately has probably felt like a comedian as well.

As you’re thinking about the milk check that you’ve been getting on a monthly basis, what’s the question on the tip of your mind that maybe we can help answer in terms of what’s driving that milk check?

Tim Moffett: As far as my milk check goes, I’m just happy the last one had a comma. I think everybody wants to know when the hell is it gonna get better. When milk prices are bad farmers are like, “Is somebody in this chain making all the money? Where’s it going?”

Mike Brown: Fats lowered, which has hurt everybody as far as actual milk check compared to the 3.5 price, ’cause fats were so much less.

Feed costs are up, energy’s obscene. So, I’m hearing a lot of grumpy farmers right now, particularly if they’re harvesting, ’cause of their cost of harvest. A lot of them are struggling with diesel. That’s what I hear. The cash flow’s tough right now. They’re a little nervous about the beef market. How much strength that’s gonna have moving forward. So, they’re not feeling particularly loved. On the product side the markets, we’ve had a spike again. We’ve seen some issues with cheese that other people here are experts on can talk about.

But how much of that is actually accruing to revenue as far as margin for plants? It’s mixed. If you’re in the milk protein business, I don’t care if it’s milk proteins or whey proteins, you’re probably making some money because those markets are way higher than other commodity markets. If you are in the commodity market making cheddar cheese or butter, things aren’t so great. You’re probably struggling a bit.

So it’s kinda mixed across the field and somewhat regionally. Areas with high cheese production, because Class III’s been so low, are hurting more than people that are high Class I, II, and IV, for example, the Northeast. So it’s kinda regional.

Ted Jacoby III: If you’re in a high Class III cheese-producing region like Wisconsin that milk check feels a little bit small. But if you’re in a Class IV-dominant order like California, or a Class I-dominant order like Florida, that pricing probably still feels pretty good right now.

I’ll go ahead and jump in and ask the next question since we’re talking about Class IV prices and how, those farmers that are getting something along the lines of a Class IV price are doing a little bit better. Diego, this non-fat price has been great. Is it gonna hold up?

Diego Carvallo: Maybe I have doubts. In the past couple of days, we have seen very red screens. We have seen limit down for two days in a row, today as of October 21st.

We can definitely not stay disconnected from international markets for too long, and we have been disconnected by almost $1,000 per metric ton for at least half this year, right? So, at some point, we’re gonna start building more inventory, prices are gonna have to move lower, and we’re gonna have to be competitive again with destinations and customers in Asia and other parts of the world.

So, I think most of that party is behind us, unfortunately.

Ted Jacoby III: But it sounds like in between all that, what you’re also saying is you should be more happy to be a U.S. dairy farmer than a European dairy farmer because our non-fat prices have been a lot higher than they have been coming out of Europe.

Isn’t that fair?

Diego Carvallo: That’s absolutely correct. They should Be way happier than the Europeans.

Jacob Menge: I think we’re really in just macroeconomic terms in a period of huge transition. Market dynamics are changing internationally, and the U.S. is basically having to buy business by being the lowest priced. That is a painful thing in the short run, and it won’t be painful for everybody.

Again, I think we have actually really fractionated market depending on class of milk, location, all of that stuff. The good news is if you are a U.S. dairy farmer and you kinda grit your teeth and we come out the other side of this in, two, three, four years we are gonna be the lowest cost producers in the world.

We’ll have bought extra market share. Our products should gain wider acceptance. Wow. It is tough to not be excited, if I’m a dairy farmer for the kind of medium term, four, five, six years out.

Tim Moffett: I’ll just throw questions out and whoever answers, answers.

Ted Jacoby III: Tim, that’s perfect … I…

Tim Moffett: Okay. So let me start with this one. Mike apparently you are part of [00:05:00] dairy market intelligence? I’m just gonna assume you’re one of the smarter guys on this podcast with that title, but what does dairy market intelligence actually mean?

Mike Brown: I’m not necessarily smarter, but I’m the oldest, so I’ve made more mistakes than the rest of them. It basically means what do we think the markets are gonna do from the entire supply chain? How are retailers gonna respond to changes? How are farmers gonna respond to changes? And what outside factors, diesel’s a good example right now, are gonna impact that?

I’m the big picture guy, and then the guys that work day to day in the real world tell me where I’m wrong.

Tim Moffett: I couldn’t get insider trading tips from you or anything like that?

Mike Brown: No I’m afraid not.

Tim Moffett: Just dairy intelligence?

Mike Brown: Weigh the intelligence among others.

Never go on one opinion in this industry.

Tim Moffett: As far as the industry goes, is the United States market growing at all?

Are GLP-1s affecting it? I know everybody’s pushing whey powder for protein, but is anybody pushing the milk? Are they trying to market at all? I don’t see any more milk commercials.

Josh White: You hit the nail on the head that protein’s super popular, and the market’s leaning into that. And Tim, that’s like the one product in the dairy complex that wasn’t ever supported, and the market found a way to both innovate and market it, and it might be 20 years later, but look at the success that the industry’s experiencing because of all the research that went into whey protein and sports nutrition, and now you can’t walk down the aisle without seeing whey protein on the label of nearly every product at the grocery store. It’s been pretty impressive. Fat had a really nice run from around 2000 when the Time Magazine article came out and pretty much declared that fat was no longer the enemy.

I would argue that this cheap run we’re experiencing right now for butter probably will provoke at least some additional use of butterfat as a clean label, clean product for ingredient use in the years to come.

But you hit the nail on the head. With the industry and all the organizations that we get together in, it’s about the whole industry. It’s about dairy.

Rarely is it about let’s go ahead and promote just butter or let’s go promote American-style cheeses or other style cheeses, or let’s promote milk protein over whey protein.

The marketing efforts are limited to a few, and the ones that have leaned into it, particularly those that are nutritional-facing, have done a pretty good job.

Tim Moffett: It’s wild to me that, 30-something years ago when my brother and I started a dairy, we were getting paid on fat.

We were pushing milk. The whey used to be the junk product, and now it’s completely upside down. I think dairy farmers are still… And I’m one of them. You’re like I’m producing milk.

Why don’t they sell it?” think It’s gotten to where it’s like ingredients to bake a cake now, it’s like stealing a car. You’re gonna sell the rims, you’re gonna part it out. I think that’s where the money is in milk now.

It used to be we’d go, “Oh, your butterfat’s gotta be high.” Now I think, you’re just going for volume.. And that’s just my thinking. Every dairy farmer in America and around the world is completely different. I was just talking to one of my dairy farmers a couple days ago about paying in money for checkoff and whatnot, but yet we don’t see any advertising.

And I think you just answered the fact that that’s a general milk organization.

Ted Jacoby III: Tim, you talk about that checkoff money. That’s always been a very easy topic to debate in dairy circles for my whole career.

Tim Moffett: I’m not bashing on it. I’m not in favor. I’m neutral on that, so let’s just… ‘Cause I get paid by those people, too- Yep … to do shows, so-

Ted Jacoby III: I’ll tell you what, I’ll help you out then because I’m gonna give you one example of where that checkoff money actually has a powerful effect. Some of that checkoff money goes to support the U.S. Dairy Export Council.

Our biggest growth area, not only as an industry over the last 25 years, but even for T.C. Jacoby & Co. has been international and it’s been exports. And the U.S. Dairy Export Council does a phenomenal job helping U.S. dairy find new markets. Your original question asked about what’s the domestic market like?

Is consumption of dairy going up? And it’s pretty flat in a lot of places domestically. Cheese in particular, there hasn’t been a lot of growth in domestic cheese consumption. But internationally, every time we go to an international show to help market U.S. cheese internationally, I can’t tell you how many people are coming up to our booth who wanna talk about new product introductions involving cheese, and a lot of that starts with things that the U.S. Dairy Export Council has been doing for this industry.

Tim Moffett: I’m not a world traveler, but when you go into another country, are they just eating cheddar and Swiss? Or are you having to help them develop new flavors?

Ted Jacoby III: So it’s a little bit of both. And the way I would put it is this: if you go to downtown Tampa or wherever, you can find Chinese food, you can find Italian food, you can find Mexican food , et cetera. So when you go to a city in Asia, like Singapore or Shanghai or Hong Kong, wherever, you can go to a burger joint, which is their version of American food, and you’re gonna be able to get American cheese. Or you’re gonna go to a pizza joint, where you’re gonna be able to get [00:10:00] mozzarella on your pizza, and the U.S. is the largest producer of pizza cheese in the world. And so, when people want pizza in Hong Kong, they, actually for the most part, want U.S. mozzarella.

But the thing is their ingredients on that pizza, completely different than what we have in the U.S. Tristan can probably give us a good example of some of the things that you can find on a pizza in different parts of the world.

Tristan Suellentrop: Sweet chili pizza with crab meat is very popular. Grape pizza is something you see a lot.

Ted Jacoby III: Grapes on a vine?

Tristan Suellentrop: Yeah, like they cut the grapes in half, and then it’s on the pizza. It has a nice sweet and savory profile, so actually, I would recommend it.

Tim Moffett: A good friend of mine, he sells his own milk. He makes cheese. He makes cream.

He’s got a pretty good market. One night, we were talking about, here in Florida, pretty much weed’s legal. If you go a mile down the road, there’s gonna be a store where you can buy whatever you want.

And they got gummies. They got so much stuff now. They even got suppositories. I was like, “What?” Anyway.

Josh White: Oh my God.

Tim Moffett: We were talking, and maybe this is something, you guys are around the world pushing products. Okay, California years ago, they had Happy Cows from California.

We came up with an idea called Happy Cheese, and our cheese would be, it’d basically have weed in it. And think of all the stoners in the world that eat a cheeseburger, a cheese pizza, nachos. And the more they eat, the more they wanna eat. So, this cheese would actually give them the munchies.

Think of how much cheese we would sell if somebody would just put weed in the cheese. That’s just, that’s my unbiased idea.

Ted Jacoby III: Yeah. I have no idea why somebody hasn’t thought of that yet.

Mike Brown: Well, I’ll tell you, it may change Wisconsin’s policy. We are surrounded by states where pot is legal, and it is not even legal for medical use in Wisconsin.

If it becomes a cheese sales issue- … it may be a change of mind here.

Tim Moffett: Because I would love to be the frontman for this, and I would sell it at all my shows… I just think it would boost the dairy industry, and people would just be happy.

We’re gonna call it Happy Cheese, is what we’re gonna call it. Happy Cheese. It puts a permagrin on your face. That’s what I’m saying. I don’t know if that’ll get edited out, but-

Josh White: I hope not.

Have any of you ever tried stand-up comedy?

No. Not on purpose.

Not on purpose.

Tim Moffett: You guys are in the industry. You guys are helping us make decisions, whether it’s on the farm or in a processing plant. Have any of you milked a cow?

Yes. Yes. Yes. Okay, great.

Tim Moffett: ‘Cause that gives legitimacy to a lot of our listeners right now.

Ted Jacoby III: Everybody, we will be right back after these messages.

Diego Carvallo: I’m Diego Carvallo with T.C. Jacoby & Co. T.C. Jacoby & Co. specializes in international dairy markets. For new customers that haven’t done business with Jacoby, I would tell them that we can provide them with many of the powders, dairy products that they consume, not only with the physical product, but we can also help them mitigate their risk.

We know dairy. We know the main players. We know the main providers for the whole value chain. We are one of the strongest players in the U.S. market because we have contact all the way from the farmer moving the liquid milk all the way to the end users that buy the end products. I am Diego Carvallo with T.C. Jacoby & Co., and We bring dairy to the world.

Tim Moffett: I’ve been in this business for, I don’t know, almost 35 years, and it seems like it’s a circle. It’s good, it comes back around. It’s like a carrot in front of you. You’re like, “Oh, I can just make it,” but I know the whole industry’s set up for go big or go home, unless you got a niche market.

So I guess my question is, if you could give the dairy farmers any advice or, do you think it’s got a bright future for any younger guys out there to stick with it?

Josh White: I’ll jump in real quick and make the comment that one of the most impressive things, having spent some time in the grain industry, spent some time at least observing the livestock industry, the dairy industry still has managed to be a family business.

Even if it’s go big or go home, the ability of the dairymen to continue to optimize and increase their efficiency at a rate better than, inflation, making dairy products cheap and interesting to the rest of the world, i- it’s pretty damn impressive in the U.S.

And the fact that they’ve done that as a family business for the most part, like a lot of the large dairy operations that exist are all part of well-known dairy families-

…

Josh White: And continue to be family businesses, I think that’s pretty, pretty awesome. So you have a highly nutritious product the whole world’s [00:15:00] demanding.

We’re the best at making it in the world, and we are the best at shipping it to the rest of the world, and we’re doing it from family dairy farms, that’s the most exciting part of it as a kid who grew up on a multi-generation dairy farm. Being able to see that somehow, the 100-cow dairy might be changing, you said it, we’ve gotta accept at least some portion of that unless you have a niche market.

But at least the legacy of dairy families continues. We’ve got an old multi-generational farm in our family, and the pressure around us, with all the other farms selling and the server farms coming in and all the pressure for family farms to sell, that’s one thing that I think is pretty impressive about the dairy industry.

And- … times are bright.

Jacob Menge: I won’t be doom and gloom, but dairy farmers can have a really kind of exciting outlook. I think the biggest change to me as more of an outside observer, I’m more of a numbers guy but I’ve seen it in grains and I think we’re definitely seeing it in dairy, is we’re in this growth period where mistakes just get punished way more.

And by that , I mean if you don’t manage your risk well, you can make pretty small mistakes, and with the pace of improvement on the technology side, on the risk management side, all of that those mistakes just are more costly now. And that’s the unfortunate thing I think we see with, maybe some smaller operations.

A mistake that a decade ago would’ve been like, man, now we had a bad year, is, oh, wow, are we gonna make it to next year even? And so that’s scary, but at the same time, I think there’s almost more tools than there’s ever been to manage, those risks, and so that’s the exciting part of it.

Tim Moffett: We always called that a tuition expense, ’cause you just got your ass schooled on something.

Ted Jacoby III: Yep.

Jacob Menge: Yep.

Tim Moffett: Yeah. Part of doing it.

Ted Jacoby III: That’s a good way to put it. So, my answer, Tim, would be I actually think our industry is going through a once in a generation change right now. You talked about how markets go through cycles, and the last 25 years it’s felt like a roller coaster.

Prices go up, dairy farmers make money. Prices go down, some go out of business. Prices go back up. It has been on a 25-year, 36-month cycle of rolling through that. The reason that I think our market is changing, and this is one of those where stick around, pay the price, and you’ll be rewarded kind of answer, is the U.S. right now, for the first time in my lifetime, probably has the cheapest incremental cost of growth of any milk-producing country in the world.

Which means to produce one more pound of milk in the U.S. is probably cheaper than anywhere else in the world to produce one more pound of milk. And as a result, as the global demand for dairy continues to increase, we’re gonna win that battle over the next two to three, four years for each extra pound of milk that global demand has.

The average dairy farmer right now, they’re not only getting milk revenue many of them are getting really good revenue from selling their cows, culling their cows or breeding to beef.

And some of them are getting really good biofuel revenue from methane digesters and whatnot. So that even if the next couple of years, I do think the price of milk is gonna be on the low end of the spectrum, and there’s gonna be a lot of dairy farmers who are gonna be complaining about how they’re just not making as much money as they did, let’s say, in 2023 or 2024.

But what’s happening is the U.S. dairy farmer may be getting a little bit of pain because they’re just not making great money, but you’re gonna be getting serious pain in Europe, serious pain in other places, because they are not able to compete on that international market because the U.S. continues to be so competitive price-wise.

We are so good at making milk in the U.S. and our economies of scale and the things we do to produce milk on the farm are so competitive right now that we’re winning that battle, but it’ll feel like we’re not winning much because the price is gonna be low.

But eventually, the other parts of the world are gonna have less milk, and then it’ll start to cycle up. And this time around, it’s gonna be a lot more sustainable for the U.S. dairy farmer. And so, I would say maybe not in 2027, maybe not in 2028, but beyond that, I think there’s a really good long period of time for the U.S. dairy farmer where we’re gonna be very competitive and it’s gonna be a great place to exist in the industry.

Tim Moffett: We’re trying to expand the international market, I know that. You just said that you feel like that, the United States will prevail with the dairy industry.

Who’s number two? Is it New Zealand? Because take for instance corn and bean farmers, Brazil has taken over that market, and corn and bean farmers are suffering because Brazil can do it twice a year. They’ve got less regulations.

Apparently, they can buy products cheaper. I guess to be devil’s advocate here, Would you see that happening? I’m not even familiar enough if Brazil has a milk market, but is there another country out there that could swoop in-

Ted Jacoby III: Tim.

Tim Moffett: I’m gonna- I’m not saying now.

I’m saying in time.

Ted Jacoby III: Tim, I’m gonna actually throw this one back on You for a second.

Tim Moffett: Okay.

Ted Jacoby III: You’re a dairy farmer in Florida.

Tim Moffett: [00:20:00] Yes.

Ted Jacoby III: What advantage does a dairy farmer in Wisconsin have over you?

Tim Moffett: Cheaper feed.

Ted Jacoby III: And what about the weather?

Tim Moffett: Cooler. That’s by far. I struggle to keep mine alive even this time of year.

Ted Jacoby III: And is Brazil hotter than Florida?

Tim Moffett: Yes. Good job, Ted, that’s Why you’re in charge right there. You just threw it back at me.

Ted Jacoby III: Yeah. The U.S., I think, is really well-positioned. I would say this, I think New Zealand is relatively well-positioned.

They’ve been the big growth place for dairy over the last 30 years. The only issue New Zealand has is they’re two islands, and they’re running out of land to continue to grow, especially on a pasture-based system. I think Europe, we’ve mentioned it a few times, Europe’s in trouble because Europe cannot compete with us in terms of cost of production, and they have historically been an exporter.

And I think the next five years, is going to be about the U.S. continuing to grow our milk supply, and if necessary, it’s going to be at Europe’s expense.

Mike Brown: Ted on Brazil because everybody thinks of South America as low cost, and Brazil is not.

Chile and Argentina kill them on cost. It’s climate. International Farm Cost Network is this group that does cost of production across the world. They work with a lot of universities.

The thing you find in Brazil is because of that climate and productivity, if you have a larger farm requiring non-family labor, they’re not competitive. Their costs are significantly higher than the folks that are basically running a smaller farm with their own family. Yes, you can call that economic cost, but in the case of a large farm, it’s actual cash cost, and they just don’t have the productivity.

And I don’t think that’s really improved that much. I think they still fall behind us even with their lower-cost feeds, it’d be my guess, because I was always surprised to see how Brazil, when you get to the large commercial herds, it wasn’t as competitive as you would think that they would be.

Josh White: Where else should we be looking for the threat that someone could come in and undercut us?

There’s a lot of them out there, I think. If you go back a couple years ago, shockingly, a competitor for skim milk powder was Iran. There was a lot of product that came out of that market, and we frankly don’t know what’s happening right now with the product in that market. Eastern Europe, when we say Europe, I think it’s important that we clarify that it’s really more Western Europe that we’re talking about because Eastern Europe does have some, you know, nice opportunities for growth.

We’ve seen a seriously maturing and highly competitive market for quality products out of Poland that we’ve had to compete with. Product coming out of a lot of other countries, other markets between Asia and Europe, we see a lot coming out of there.

Russia, they’re a serious player at times. China bolstered their internal milk production impressively over the last decade. I think they’re actually rewinding that a little bit right now and pulling back a little bit in their internal milk production, but they were threatening to go from by far the largest importer of dairy products to an actual exporter of certain dairy products as they were bringing up their milk production.

Wherever there’s opportunity, there’s a lot of developing markets that are gonna step in, make products, and undercut U.S. prices in the core commodity space. You said it best, I think, earlier, that you have milk that comes out.

Milk becomes a whole bunch of different products that get reconstructed in different formulas into new products, and the markets for high-quality milk products as high-valued ingredients, the U.S., Europe, and New Zealand, tend to be the leaders in that space. And for the reasons Ted mentioned, we have the most growth potential in the U.S.

Mike Brown: Another add for China, all their protein business, whether it be meat, poultry they all compete for a limited amount of farmland and a limited amount of water. And at some point, China, they have to ask themselves, is it more efficient to just bring in dry milk from the United States and New Zealand and have that feed for pigs or to import the feed to feed the pig?

They are a master economy. What happens there isn’t always economics, and you have to take that into mind. But I think a big thing in China’s growth is feed resource moving forward.

Tim Moffett: You guys did a great job answering that question. Do you guys have any questions for me?

Ted Jacoby III: What is your biggest challenge right now as a dairy farmer?

Tim Moffett: Getting out of bed. No, no, I think it’s just like everybody else. You got high fuel prices, you got here in Florida, the minimum wage just popped up. It’s input costs. I wouldn’t say I got problems, I’m just saying it’s like we talked about earlier, a mistake 10 years ago, eh, that hurt a little bit.

Now it’s crunch time if something happens, but I think I’m just like anybody else out there trying to make smart decisions and not get over my skis. Like we mentioned, beef prices and cull prices have helped a lot, recently. I think they’re starting to come down a little bit.

But I don’t know. I enjoy what I’m doing. My brother and I enjoy it, but I, I’m just like everybody else. I’m just one day at a time, man.

Josh White: Tim, is there another generation for you and your brother?

Tim Moffett: Nope. We both started when we were young.

We borrowed [00:25:00] $100,000, bought 100 cows, and rented a crappy old facility, and we spent most of our younger years with cows. But I got some nieces and nephews that might wanna walk into it.

Diego Carvallo: What would make you wanna either expand or maybe sell? Is there something that would trigger that, in your specific case?

Tim Moffett: 18 years ago we were at the point where we needed to expand. We were only milking about 500, and we hit the organic market.

We went full niche. We went 100% grass-fed organic. Then the organic market got saturated, and then during COVID we went raw. We started selling raw because people were wondering where their milk came from.

And so, now we’ve downsized to 250, but what I make for one gallon, it works for us.

Ted Jacoby III: Are you still organic?

Tim Moffett: No. No, I’m not. We have Our own little customers that come and we have a route that goes through, most of Florida.

And like I said, we either had to expand or we were gonna get out, and we regrouped. How we talked about those tuition expenses, we made some mistakes, but this works for us now. People think we’re crazy and probably eating that weed cheese, but we only milk them once a day. But I’ve done the whole gamut, man. I’ve done the two or three times a day. I’ve done all that. But my brother and I, we started with nothing, and we didn’t wanna go in huge debt to expand, and so that’s the route we went. And I’ve talked to a few dairy farmers at shows around the country that have done the exact same thing.

But I’m still a dairy farmer. I’m still pushing milk.

Ted Jacoby III: Tim, what do you miss about the old crappy facility you bought so many years ago.

Tim Moffett: It was a stanchion barn- Oh, wow … and just getting kicked. You’d get cows that, only wanted to be milked on the right side, not the left. Man, I remember one time my brother had a pair of cargo pants on, and this cow lit him up, and her foot got caught in those cargo pants. And the machine went flying, and he was standing there, and it literally ripped his pants off, and he was still in his rubber boots. Those were the days when we were young and pretty much living on Mountain Dew and Copenhagen, and we were just running through it.

I do miss some of those days, but now I’m older. We got a double 20 parallel and life is easy.

Ted Jacoby III: So- Tim, do you name your cows?

Tim Moffett: Some of them have choice names. Um Most of them just have numbers, but if you got one that’s got a special talent, she’s got a special name.

Ted Jacoby III: Any names that you can share?

Tim Moffett: Dirty White Boy. We’ve got nicknames for all of them, and generally those are the first ones on the list where one more problem and you’re going on the beef truck.

Ted Jacoby III: Do you have a most memorable cow?

Tim Moffett: Yeah, the one that ripped my brother’s pants off was- her tag was number 1. We literally bought her out of a dairy dispersal sale, and this cow’s the biggest cow I think I’ve ever seen in my life, and she just tore him up.

But it was the funniest thing to me. I will never forget that cow, number 1.

Mike Brown: How long did she live after she tore your brother’s pants off?

Tim Moffett: I refused to get rid of her after that. She was around for a while. And I’ll tell you, I’ll tell you a crazy thing. I don’t know if we got time or not. So, in this stanchion barn we had this is back in the day before cell phones and whatnot, so there was a phone on the wall, like a regular landline phone.

Some of you younger people have no idea what I’m talking about. This particular day, lightning hit the barn at the exact same time the phone rang. So these cows are all in metal stanchions. There was 64 cows in a stanchion at the time.

Every one of them yanked back. They all got shocked and hauled ass out the barn, just tearing fences down. That cow, like an elephant, she remembered. So when she was in the barn, we would literally take that phone off the hook because what had happened was the phone rang when my brother was hanging that cow, and she remembered that shock. Oh, wow. And she tore the crap out of him. I will never forget. In fact, I wrote a book it’s got a bunch of humorous articles in it, and I wrote about that.

Josh White: What’s the name of your book?

Tim Moffett: Corn Cobs and Chaos.

 I normally sell it whenever I’m doing my corporate events. By the way, if anybody wants to hire me for comedy I think I’m doing the Oregon Dairy Farmers in March, but I do all types of agriculture stuff.

Josh White: Before we jump off, can Tristan rapid fire some questions?

Tim Moffett: Yeah. Go ahead.

Yeah.

Tristan Suellentrop: Okay. If cows could talk, what would be the first thing they’d complain about?

Tim Moffett: Why are they pulling on [00:30:00] my udders all day?

Tristan Suellentrop: If you were going to compete in an Olympic sport with a cow which sport would you choose?

Tim Moffett: Probably the shot put, ’cause I would practice throwing cow chips.

Tristan Suellentrop: If cows had social media, what would they be posting about?

Tim Moffett: Why am I eating the same thing every day? They wouldn’t take pictures because they’re eating the same thing every day.

Tristan Suellentrop: If cows could leave a Google review of your farm, what would they say?

Tim Moffett: A fun place to be. They got this great cheese that makes me hungry.

Ted Jacoby III: Tim, thank you so much for joining us. We really appreciate- Hey … this is fun.

Tim Moffett: Good seeing you guys again. I had a good time, and call me again. Maybe I’ll see you around the country sometime.

Ted Jacoby III: Thanks a lot. Great to see you.

Mike Brown: Yep.

Tim Moffett: See you.

Mike Brown: Thank you. See you, Ted.

Ted Jacoby III: Yep. Thank you, guys.

Tristan Suellentrop: Bye.

Outro commercial: Not transcribed.

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