Since 1923, the American Dairy Products Institute (ADPI) – and its predecessor organizations of the Evaporated Milk Association, the American Dry Milk Institute and the Whey Products Institute – have served the dairy ingredients industry by providing technical and commercial support and expertise.

As an international trade association, ADPI helps connect commodity and value-added US dairy ingredients with end users, both domestically and abroad, serving our member companies and the greater dairy industry. We have long been taking on the large complex questions and opportunities of standards, product names, government oversight, production and industry response when it was needed the most.

Go-to resource

ADPI’s vision is to be the go-to authority for dairy ingredients and to increase the utilization of these functional and nutritious products worldwide by supporting our members now and in the next hundred years.

ADPI makes this vision a reality by harnessing the technical, manufacturing and marketing resources of our member companies and organizations, leveraging those resources to drive progress. We foster innovation with research funding, enable commerce by establishing uniform, industry-recognized requirements for product quality and safety, and train the next generation of dairy leaders on everything from economics to processing to sustainability.

ADPI’s service to the dairy industry is built on a strong foundation of standards. In 2023, all existing standards underwent a comprehensive review to ensure they continue to provide valuable, contemporary information that solidifies understanding and facilitates commerce. Our standards take on many forms, including ingredient standards, which reflects the US dairy industry’s positioning to restore competitiveness with ingredients such as casein and its caseinate derivatives, as well as certified reference standards and scorched particles standards for dry milks.

Additionally, the ADPI Proficiency Testing Program gives subscribers regular rounds of testing throughout the year to assess laboratory accuracy against the industry for three families of products: nonfat dry milks, whey protein concentrates and milk protein concentrates.

Subscribers test the blind samples against requirements defined in ADPI Ingredient Standards, using methods calibrated with ADPI Certified Reference Standards, and report back anonymous results for statistical analysis via a third-party-administered web portal. Program output illustrates participant performance within the overall group of subscribers, tracks the historical progress toward alignment of results, and is a quantitative tool to drive continuous improvement.

Technical expertise

ADPI’s technical expertise is historically rooted in its people.

Current staff member KJ Burrington, vice president of technical development, is well respected throughout the industry and brings more than 25 years of product development experience to the table. She served as the ingredient applications program coordinator for the Wisconsin Center for Dairy Research (CDR), conducted ingredient seminars internationally in conjunction with the US Dairy Export Council (USDEC), and was recently elected to the role of vice chair at US-IDF. Andy Powers, vice president of technical services, joined ADPI in 2023 as an industry veteran with experience that spans food, feed and pharma. Powers contributes more than 30 years of analytical expertise, manufacturing knowledge, quality and food safety systems management, and commercial leadership, and he has current roles in the US Technical Advisory Group to ISO and on the IDF Standing Committee on Analytical Methods for Processing Aids and Indicators (SCAMPAI).

The ADPI Center of Excellence is an evolving team of respected, accomplished subject matter experts who cover all things dairy. Center of Excellence members field questions great and small from ADPI member organizations and contribute much to ADPI’s growing library of technical resource documents, including the Reconstituting Dairy Powders Handbook. These subject matter experts are often present at ADPI training programs and events, representing more than 300 years of collective professional experience.

Pulse of the industry

ADPI engages with reputable subject matter experts extensively, not only within our own membership ranks, but also externally. From our annual training programs and industry conferences to ingredient standards and technical resources, ADPI thrives because of the contributions of our member companies. Our committees ensure that any and all subjects relevant to the present or future competitiveness of the US dairy industry are on the table and are adequately supported with knowledge-based resources.

ADPI stands ready with those resources in the form of training, standards and events to serve the growing dairy industry. What is said for other endeavors is also true for our industry: competitiveness for dairy isn’t a destination, it’s a journey, and ADPI will continue providing the forum for collaboration and the essential services and leadership to guide our industry to ongoing success.

ADPI's vice president of technical services Andy Powers and vice president of marketing and events Tara Anderson co-authored the Association Insights entry in the Sept-Oct. issue of Dairy Processing.