On Wednesday, March 3rd, approximately 23 million pounds of restricted use NDM were offered and sold through The Seam's online auction platform from USDA's Commodity Credit Corporation ("CCC") stocks at prices averaging $.75 per pound. Another roughly 5 million pounds were purchased March 4th and as of noon on March 5th, almost another 7 million pounds had been sold, for a total of at least 35 million pounds.

The contractual terms of sale require that the restricted-use NDM may not be used in any application for human consumption. The initial purchaser, and downstream purchasers are subject to penalties equal to $1.55 per pound, less the auction price, if any of the restricted NDM is used for human consumption. Documentation of the identities of all initial purchasers and all subsequent purchasers and the applicable volumes will be provided by The Seam to USDA.. ADPI will request USDA to establish a procedure to audit the transactional paper trail to ensure that the restricted NDM is not being unlawfully repackaged or converted for human consumption. ADPI and other dairy industry associations are formally protesting to USDA that none of the surplus product sold to date has been denatured or labelled as unlawful for human consumption.