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Spilled milk; When Davis & Sons left fold, Dean Foods played hardball.

Publication: Crain's Detroit Business
Publication Date: 08-MAR-04 		Format: Online - approximately 930 words
Delivery: Immediate Online Access
Full Article Title: Spilled milk; When Davis & Sons left fold, Dean Foods played hardball.(Tom Davis & Sons Dairy Inc.)

Article Excerpt
Byline: Michael Strong

Gary Davis and his four siblings wanted to quietly sell their family dairy business, Tom Davis & Sons Dairy Inc. They did everything they could to ensure the sale wouldn't disrupt their customers or Davis' 100 employees.

It didn't work.

Selling the 46-year-old business their father founded meant divorcing Dallas-based Dean Foods Co. for whom the company had distributed milk and dairy products for more than a decade.

Not only was Davis & Sons leaving Dean, which controls an estimated 70 percent to 80 percent of the milk sales in metro Detroit, without a distributor, but also it was introducing a new brand, Prairie Farms Dairy Inc., a farmers collective based in Carlinville, Ill., into the Detroit area.

When the sale was complete in December, Dean Foods moved to protect market share. According to some...

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