Lately, there has been a re-examination of milk fat’s role in the diet.

The National Dairy Council (NDC) has been an active leader of the conversation as experts “de-demonize” dietary fats, including milk fat, for consumers. Dairy farmers benefit from NDC’s work through the checkoff’s partnerships.

McDonald’s was one of the dairy checkoff’s first partners and the relationship has grown to where checkoff employees are housed at McDonald’s headquarters to help develop, test, position and market new dairy-friendly items.

So when McDonald’s said it wanted to use real American butter instead of margarine and needed the checkoff’s help to make the switch, it was the result of many factors, including the research, relationships, credibility of staff and their ability to help companies grow dairy sales.