(Radio Iowa) – The Food Bank of Siouxland now has the second half of a large donation of milk from Kemp’s Dairy and Hy-Vee. Food bank executive director, Jacob Wanderscheid, says the shelf stable milk in is chocolate. “Kids just generally respond a lot better to chocolate milk, so this will go even faster than that white milk that we got in the summer,” he says. “It comes at a great time as we build supplies up for the holiday giving.”

The food bank and the two businesses have teamed up for the annual great American milk drive the past two years. Wanderscheid says the 49-thousand units of milk come as they enter their busiest time. “The biggest season for us is that November, December, January period as economic things slow down farming, construction roadwork slows down, people are taking that break for winter. Times get tough during the Thanksgiving and Christmas season,” he says.

Milk has a short shelf life and that makes it a high demand item for the agencies the food bank serves. The Dairy Farmers of America developed the shelf stable milk. Jay Johnson is Kemp’s sales director in Le Mars where the shelf stable milk was first used. “It came as a part of a need study to determine how we could be most impactful to helping nutritionally starved kids and families throughout the country,” Johnson says. “And the number one problem was a milk product that didn’t require refrigeration. Through that D-F-A has decided to develop shelf stable, individually packed milk. It’s easier to carry. You can put it in backpacks, you can send it to school.”

The Food Bank of Siouxland will split the milk between the backpack program for two-thousand school kids, and the food they send to their agencies. They serve several northwest Iowa counties.