Why Is There No Milk on the Shelves? A Look at Dairy Supply Chain Disruptions

December 26, 2025 •

4 min read

According to a 2025 study, global dairy milk production growth has slowed to just 2% annually, leading to increased pressure on supply chains. This slowdown, compounded by various post-pandemic challenges, explains the perplexing question: why is there no milk on the shelves when you go to the store?

Quick Summary

Several interconnected factors, including persistent supply chain disruptions, labor shortages, climate change impacts, and evolving consumer habits, are causing modern milk shortages.

Key Points

Supply Chain Vulnerability: The pandemic revealed critical weaknesses in the dairy supply chain, causing a disconnect between dairy farmers dumping milk and stores experiencing bare shelves.
Labor Shortages: A persistent lack of qualified workers across farming, processing, and trucking is causing significant delays and distribution issues for dairy products.
Climate Change Impacts: Extreme heat, drought, and other weather events are directly reducing milk yield and quality, disproportionately affecting smaller dairy farms.
Shifting Consumer Habits: The decrease in traditional milk consumption alongside growing demand for niche organic and alternative dairy products creates market imbalances and production challenges.
Farmer Economic Strain: Rising production costs, low profitability, and market consolidation are forcing small and mid-sized dairy farms out of business, reducing the overall resilience of the supply network.
Logistical Hurdles: Trucking shortages and transportation disruptions, exacerbated by climate events and ongoing labor issues, are causing delays that impact the delivery and shelf-life of perishable dairy products.

Empty milk shelves have become an increasingly common sight for many shoppers, prompting widespread frustration and confusion. While panic buying during the early pandemic played a role, the ongoing issue of why is there no milk on the shelves is rooted in complex, systemic problems impacting the entire dairy supply chain. From the farm to the processing plant and finally to your grocery store, multiple bottlenecks and disruptions are conspiring to leave refrigerated cases bare.

The Lingering Legacy of Pandemic Disruptions

The COVID-19 pandemic exposed critical vulnerabilities in the dairy supply chain that have yet to be fully resolved. The initial public panic and swift changes in consumer buying habits created a massive imbalance. Restaurants, schools, and other food service sectors that typically purchased dairy in bulk shut down almost overnight. Meanwhile, grocery store demand surged as people cooked more at home. Dairy farmers, with an unceasing milk supply from their cows, were forced to dump massive quantities of milk because processing plants were set up to handle specific product types and could not easily pivot to retail-sized packaging. This market chaos created a financial crisis for many small farmers, forcing many to exit the industry entirely.

The Labor Shortage Squeeze

The dairy industry is labor-intensive, and chronic staffing issues are affecting every stage of the supply chain. Dairy farms struggle to attract and retain workers, especially in rural areas, and an aging workforce exacerbates the problem. The labor shortage extends beyond the farms to the processing plants and transportation sector. A persistent shortage of truckers and logistics personnel means that even when milk is ready to be shipped, delays in transport can impact delivery schedules and result in spoiled product. In August 2025, a survey by a major UK dairy cooperative highlighted that a significant majority of its farmers found it very difficult to find qualified workers.

The Real-World Impact of Climate Change

Extreme weather events, a consequence of climate change, are having a devastating effect on dairy farming and milk production worldwide.

Heat Stress on Cows: Just like humans, dairy cows suffer from heat stress, which causes decreased appetite, higher stress levels, and a significant drop in milk production and quality. A University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign study published in early 2025 quantified billions of pounds in milk losses over five years due to heat stress. Smaller farms, lacking the resources for high-tech cooling systems, are disproportionately affected.
Feed and Forage Scarcity: Droughts and floods directly impact the growth of crops like corn and hay, critical feed for dairy cows. This scarcity drives up feed costs for farmers while potentially impacting the nutritional content of the feed, which in turn can affect milk quality and yield.
Water Availability Issues: Milk production requires significant quantities of water, and increased water scarcity in some regions due to prolonged droughts poses a severe threat to long-term dairy viability.

Shifting Sands of Consumer Demand

Consumer purchasing habits are evolving, which further complicates the dairy landscape. While overall fluid milk consumption is declining in many mature markets, demand for specialized products like organic milk, high-protein yogurts, and various non-dairy alternatives is on the rise. This creates a mismatch between supply and demand. The processing infrastructure is not always nimble enough to quickly reconfigure for different product formats, leading to surpluses of one type of dairy and shortages of another. Furthermore, the increased demand for organic dairy, coupled with rising production costs, has created significant shortages of those specific products, leaving shelves notably empty of organic options.

The Squeeze on Dairy Farmers

Profitability for many small and mid-sized dairy farmers has been under pressure for years. Input costs for feed, fuel, and labor continue to rise, while milk prices often do not keep pace. The economic strain has led to a wave of small farm closures across many regions, leaving a more consolidated industry dominated by larger, corporate operations. This concentration reduces the overall resilience of the supply network. When a large processing plant or transport hub experiences a disruption, the effects ripple more significantly across the system.

Navigating the Dairy Supply Chain: A Comparison

To understand the magnitude of the shift, compare the dairy supply chain before major disruptions to its current state.


Aspect	Pre-Disruption (e.g., 2018)	Current State (e.g., 2025)
Supply & Demand	Predictable, stable patterns, largely based on contracts with food service and retail.	Volatile and imbalanced. Large shifts in demand require rapid, complex adjustments.
Labor Market	Stable workforce, augmented by migrant labor.	Widespread shortages across farms, processing, and transportation. High employee turnover.
Climate Impact	Considered a long-term risk; less frequent severe events impacted production.	Immediate and frequent threat. Heat stress and extreme weather cause measurable, costly production losses.
Processing Capacity	Optimized for consistent, predictable product types and packaging formats.	Strained capacity and mismatch between wholesale and retail demand during surges.
Farmer Viability	Financially challenged, but smaller farms more prevalent.	Fewer, larger farms dominate. Small farm closures increase consolidation and reduce system redundancy.

Conclusion: A Resilient Future Requires Adaptability

Ultimately, empty shelves are a symptom of a dairy supply chain struggling to adapt to a new normal. The combination of structural weaknesses revealed by the pandemic, ongoing labor shortages, the intensifying effects of climate change, and evolving consumer preferences creates a perfect storm of disruptions. Solutions require a multi-faceted approach, including technological innovation like automation and improved forecasting, better support and policy for small farmers, and continued investment in climate-resilient farming practices. While the dairy industry is working to adapt, these persistent challenges mean that grocery shoppers may continue to encounter these intermittent shortages for the foreseeable future. The system requires fundamental changes to become as resilient and reliable as it once was.

For more insight into the long-term strategic changes facing the dairy sector, including technology and sustainability, see the analysis at DairyTech Expo.

Frequently Asked Questions

While the pandemic certainly created major disruptions and exacerbated existing issues, some challenges, like falling milk prices and the decline of small farms, were already present for years before 2020.

Not necessarily. During the pandemic, farmers were sometimes forced to dump milk due to processing and transportation bottlenecks, not a lack of supply. More recently, factors like heat stress and rising costs are reducing milk yield per cow, but supply chain issues are the primary cause of empty shelves.

Organic milk shortages are frequently tied to the economic pressure on organic dairy farmers. Rising costs of feed and production combined with increasing demand have made it difficult for supply to keep up, leading to noticeable shortages in stores.

A scarcity of workers affects every step of the dairy supply chain, from milking cows on the farm to processing milk in plants and driving trucks for distribution. Fewer workers mean delays and reduced output throughout the process.

Yes. Extreme weather, such as floods and droughts, can disrupt the food and water supply for dairy cows, cause significant farm damage, and impede transportation, all of which contribute to milk shortages.

Yes, they are. As consumers increasingly turn to plant-based milk alternatives and niche dairy products, the demand for traditional fluid milk decreases. This shift creates a need for processors to adapt, and supply can become misaligned with demand during the transition.

The industry is investing in automation to counter labor shortages, developing more resilient climate-smart farming practices, and working to improve supply chain visibility and forecasting. Some are also forming stronger local networks to reduce reliance on vulnerable global supply lines.