Dairy.com acquires Data Specialists, Inc.

The combined companies will have more than 100 employees in four main locations.

Founded by Sherrie and Richard Mertes in 1980, DSI provisions producer payroll, procurement, manufacturing ERP, financial and warehouse/distribution management software. More than 180 dairy and food plants nationwide use DSI tools.

Adding solutions

Dairy.com CEO Scott Sexton said, "DSI and the Mertes family are dairy technology pioneers, developing and delivering solutions that have fueled customer success for nearly 40 years. ​

"Adding DSI to our portfolio materially broadens Dairy.com offerings. Connecting platforms takes us to places we have not been. In particular, the DSI manufacturing suite is a powerful solution that handles complex in-plant processes, further extending Dairy.com traceability capabilities across the supply chain."​

Ryan Mertes, president of DSI, will become president of the DSI Division of Dairy.com and chief solutions officer of Dairy.com. The DSI division will maintain operations from its base in Elkhorn, Wisconsin.

Mertes said, "Joining with Dairy.com allows our employees to create the largest pool of dairy talent available. We believe the combination is going to provide exciting and unique solutions. We can't wait to discuss the breadth, scope, and benefits with the industry we've spent decades supporting."​

New offerings

With the acquisition, Dairy.com's offerings include:

• Procurement Tools: milk dispatch, milk receiving, milk scheduling, producer payroll, mobile farm ticket data collection, liquid by-product scheduling, freight exchange and farm management.
• Plant Tools: production scheduling, production management, sales analysis, costing, inventory management, distribution management, wireless barcoding, electronic data interchange and lab information management.
• Management Tools: dairy market intelligence, price risk management, mass balance audits, transportation analytics, payroll processing, outsourced logistics, financial evaluation, on-call economists, feasibility studies, manufacturing best practices, logistics benchmarking and strategic planning.

Clients include more than 75% of the dairy foods’ top 100 companies in the US as well as several international accounts.  Founded in 2000, Dairy.com is based in Frisco, Texas. In 2013, it purchased the Blimling Companies, adding locations in Madison, Wisconsin and Chicago, Illinois.