Episode 47 - The Dairy Industry Isn't Guessing - How Checkoff Uses Data to Build Demand

DMI’s Gail Legaspi-Gaull, Group EVP of Strategic Insights and Planning, joins DMI’s Scott Wallin to break down how strategic intelligence is helping the dairy industry stay ahead of change.

From analyzing consumer behavior and market trends to forecasting what’s next, Gail explains how these insights are used to shape marketing, drive product innovation, and support global partnerships that grow demand for dairy.

She also shares what this means for farmers—allowing them to stay focused on the farm while checkoff works to build demand for their milk today and for years to come.

Host & Guest: 

• Host: Scott Wallin, Vice President of Farmer Communications & Media Relations, Dairy Management Inc.
• Guest: Gail Legaspi-Gaull, Group EVP of Strategic Insights and Planning, Dairy Management Inc.

Transcript (AI-Generated, please ignore typos)

Your Dairy Checkoff Podcast   0:02  

welcome to your Dairy Checkoff podcast from dairy management Inc, where Dairy Checkoff leaders and farmers share real stories, strategies and insights that grow sales and build trust for us dairy let's get started.

Scott Wallin   0:18  

Welcome to another edition of the your dairy check off podcast. I'm Scott Wallen with dairy management Incorporated, and we have another interesting topic for you today. We're going to talk a little strategic intelligence. And with me is my colleague at Dairy management Incorporated, Gail Legaspi gall. She's the head of all things strategic intelligence and planning. Gail, welcome to the podcast. How are you today?

Gail Legaspi-Gaull   0:41  

I'm Great Scott. Thanks so much for having me today. Well, I'm

Scott Wallin   0:43  

really looking forward to this conversation. I know we've had a lot of discussions leading up to this, and I really think the content you're going to share will really resonate well with our dairy farmers. So before I get into my questions, can you tell us a little bit about your background?

Gail Legaspi-Gaull   0:56  

Sure. So officially, my title is group EVP of strategic insights and planning. But at DMI, that actually covers several really great areas of the business, and I have the privilege of supporting some amazing people. So in addition to strategic intelligence, I cover international partnerships, strategic planning and measurement, and then Federation relations.

Scott Wallin   1:17  

I'm not going to lie when I first heard at DMI strategic intelligence or, you know, department, I thought this is like something in the military or spy novel or something like that, and but obviously, that's so far from the truth. What start with the definition of what strategic intelligence means for us in the dairy industry?

Gail Legaspi-Gaull   1:36  

Well, it's funny, actually, that you mentioned the military or the CIA intelligence is intelligence, right? It's looking for information, and we tend to think in sets of threes. So we look at the past, the present and the future, and we also look at what is the market or the industry doing, what are consumers doing, and what is happening beyond our industry to help us really make sound decisions for today, tomorrow and further out. And so if you're a farmer, and you think about what kind of intelligence you look for on the farm, that could be milk, price, movement, yield per cow, maybe long term weather forecasts, but use all that information to decide what to do on a daily basis, but also how to plan for the future. Yeah,

Scott Wallin   2:19  

I love how you brought that back to the farm, because certainly our farmers understand that quite well. So what's been the evolution of the team? Can you just walk us through a little bit of the history of the team and exactly how many people work in strategic intelligence?

Gail Legaspi-Gaull   2:32  

Sure, dairy Management, Inc, has actually been really great about prioritizing insight and intelligence throughout the years. However, until about maybe four or five years ago, that function was really scattered throughout the organization and was used more of an ad hoc basis. But what we did several years ago was to bring all of the Strategic Intelligence under one roof, and now it's a cohesive function with about eight people.

Scott Wallin   2:57  

Why does this matter to the dairy industry?

Gail Legaspi-Gaull   3:00  

Really? I think it matters because it helps the entire dairy industry stay ahead of change. And that means, instead of constantly reacting to things and being caught on their back foot, we can be proactive and look ahead and really read the road as it's happening. So think of us as being your co pilots, whether you are in the industry, on the industry or on the farm, you

Scott Wallin   3:24  

understand and examine a lot about consumer behaviors and perceptions of dairy. What have you picked up on as it relates specifically to dairy?

Gail Legaspi-Gaull   3:32  

The dairy industry is so fascinating, and we're pretty well trusted industry. But what makes it really interesting to me is how relevant we are to farms, people, families around the country, and so that means 58% of people, or maybe 56 to 58 I can't remember the exact number right now. Find dairy relevant, meaning they love the products that we have, and they think it's for people like them, and they want to interact with us on a regular basis.

Scott Wallin   4:01  

So let's talk a little bit more about how do you divide up Strategic Intelligence? What are what are some of the pillars that we really focus on?

Gail Legaspi-Gaull   4:09  

As I mentioned, we always talk in threes, and so we have three key areas. The first is what we call market and channel intelligence. So that's understanding what's happening in the marketplace, what's happening at retail stores, what's happening at restaurants. So that's kind of the marketing and sales data that you can get from scanners, you can get from sales receipts at stores and things like that. And that's really understanding what's happening in the category and in the market. And then we look at things like foresight and trends. So what's trending in social media, what's trending in popular discussion, what foresight is happening that's talking about how not just the industry will change, but how our lives will be changing in the next three to 10 years. And then finally, consumer intelligence, and that's getting to the nitty gritty of what every. Consumer is doing, whether that's how much milk they're eating, what kind of yogurt they're buying, or even how often they're going to the grocery store.

Scott Wallin   5:07  

So Gail, once you have all these insights gathered up, what, what's kind of the next step, how are they using? Who has access to it?

Gail Legaspi-Gaull   5:15  

Thankfully, everyone really has access to it. Anyone in the dairy industry, especially our farmers, our co ops, our business partners, and then our state and regions and even our organizations such as milk pep or US Dec. But really, there are several examples of how those insights are used. The first is driving national and regional communication and claims. So when we look at consumers and understand what matters to them in this day and age, what kinds of claims and concerns do they have on their minds? We use that information to then feed to our communications folks, both again, nationally and regionally, to use in their advertising, to lose in their social media posts, and really anytime that they're talking about any dairy industry product we also use the information to drive R and D and product innovation, so understanding the consumers looking at what's selling in the marketplace, we can then help our scientists figure out what dig areas they should be looking at, and then also our product innovation team. That's how we realized how important, for example, protein is especially around the growth and development of young people. So that's kids in grade school, kids in high school, and not just for physical growth and development, but also for mental development as well. And then finally, we drive business decisions for our partners. An example of that is when we did some research in Japan with their consumers about cheese, to see what attitudes, perceptions and usage they have around cheese, and then that information has been now used by one of our partners to decide their product mix. Things like new formats and new flavors are being driven by that research.

Scott Wallin   6:56  

Yeah, that's so fascinating that what what you're learning there in Rosemont, Illinois, can can impact what we're doing, you know, internationally. And, you know, we have our partnerships overseas with Domino's and Pizza Hut, and then obviously all the work you do through the US dairy Export Council. So it's great to see that that this thing has, you know, tentacles far and wide,

Gail Legaspi-Gaull   7:16  

exactly. It's really exciting to actually see how the research that we have from our team then gets played out in the real world.

Scott Wallin   7:23  

You know, if you if you were before a group of farmers and you wanted them to really understand, you know, one or two takeaways about the work even your team lead, what's the what are the things you most want to rise to the top for farmers to understand about strategic intelligence.

Gail Legaspi-Gaull   7:37  

It's hard to focus on one thing, but I would love for farmers to remember from this that what we do means that they can focus on the things that are happening at the farm and really care about the production of their milk and their cows and all of that wonderful things. But what happens for us then is we build the understanding so that check off can figure out the right kind of demand for those milk products, both now and in the future. So it's about making sure that decisions are made today on behalf of our farmers that set up the industry to succeed three, five, even 10 years out. You

Scott Wallin   8:12  

know, if there are farmers or anybody across the dairy value chain listening to this and they want to learn more information or get in contact with you or your team. What's some of the best ways they can use to reach you?

Gail Legaspi-Gaull   8:23  

The easiest way is to email us at strategic.intelligence@dairy.org but I also highly encourage anyone farmers check off folks, to feel free to actually reach out to me directly. It's a long email address, so we'll just put it up on screen.

Scott Wallin   8:38  

Gail, I really enjoyed the discussion today, and thank you so much for sharing more about your team's work.

Gail Legaspi-Gaull   8:43  

Thank you so much. And I thank the farmers for giving us the opportunity to do work that we really love on your behalf.

Your Dairy Checkoff Podcast   8:51  

Thanks for listening to your Dairy Checkoff podcast. Want to hear more about how your checkoff is making every drop count. Head over to dairy checkoff.com or follow us wherever you get your podcast, see you next time.