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For much of the 20th century, milk was a simple part of daily life in the U.S., as farmers raised cows, milkmen delivered bottle

admin2022-11-16  198
问题     For much of the 20th century, milk was a simple part of daily life in the U.S., as farmers raised cows, milkmen delivered bottles and children drank it at school. But those days are fading—a fact emphasized by the announcement on Jan. 5 by Borden Dairy, the milk processor, that it is filing for bankruptcy protection. Borden, which said it was impacted by "market challenges facing the dairy industry," follows Dean Foods, America’s largest milk producer, which filed for bankruptcy protection in November.
    America has fallen out of love with drinking milk, as lower-calorie options have proliferated and people are substituting water bottles for milk cartons. Americans each drank an estimated 146 lb. of fluid milk—a category that includes products from skim to cream—in 2018, according to the USDAs Economic Research Service. That may sound like a lot, but it’s down 26％ just since 2000. The downturn has been tough on dairy processors like Borden and Dean, which buy fresh milk from farms and use techniques like pasteurization to create a consumer-safe beverage with a longer shelf life. For the past five years, thanks to technology that increased milk production, fresh-milk prices were relatively low, which meant processors could break even despite shifting demand.
    But prices began ticking up again last year, squeezing the processors’ already tight margins. "Declining sales in a thin-margin business is not a good recipe for success," says Mark Stephenson, director of dairy policy analysis at the University of Wisconsin.
    Milk processors are also facing competition from big retailers, which have set up their own processing plants. In 2018, Walmart opened a milk-processing plant in Indiana to serve hundreds of stores in the Midwest, taking away approximately 95 million gal. of milk-processing business from Dean Foods.
    On the other end of the supply chain, dairy farms are facing trouble of their own. The low prices that were a boon to processors left small farmers struggling across the industry. The number of Chapter 12 farm bankruptcies in 2019 was up 24％ from the previous year. "We’re trying our best to hang on," says Mary Rieckmann, a dairy farmer in Wisconsin whose family has turned to GoFundMe to keep their century-old farm running.
    Borden says it plans to continue to operate as it restructures under court supervision. But if that plan fails, it wouldn’t be the first dairy processor to cease operations. There were 605 fluid-milk plants in America in 1990. By 2018, there were only 459.
Borden Dairy filed for bankruptcy because________.
选项 A、Americans no longer see milk as a healthier option
B、the company can’t adapt to the trends of the market
C、Dean Foods forced it out of the market
D、the techniques it employs are outdated
答案B
解析 根据题干关键词Borden Dairy和filed for bankruptcy定位至第一段。题干问博登乳业申请破产保护的原因是什么。该段第三句提到，博登乳业表示“乳制品行业面临的市场挑战(market challenges facing the dairy industry)”使得该公司受到冲击，因而，导致该公司申请破产保护的是乳制品行业发生的变化。对比四个选项，只有选项B“公司不能够适应市场的趋势”是原文的同义转述，故为正确答案。A项“美国人不再将牛奶视为一个更健康的选择”，文中第二段提到美国人饮用牛奶的量有所减少，因为低卡路里饮品的选择增多和瓶装水替代了牛奶(lower-calorie options have proliferated and people are substituting water bottles for milk cartons). 与选项A不符，故排除。C项“迪恩食品公司将该公司挤出了市场”，文中说的是博登乳业继迪恩食品公司之后申请破产保护，该选项与原文不符，故排除。选项D“博登乳业使用的技术过时了”，文中第二段末尾提到技术，但讲的是技术有助于生产保质期更长、适合消费者饮用的安全饮品，因此应为“技术进步”，而非过时，故排除。
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