State Fair announces sponsors for milk bar, butter sculpture

GEDDES, N.Y. — Two companies with “significant ties to New York State agriculture” will sponsor the “signature” attractions at the New York State Fair’s dairy-products building.

Tully’s Good Times restaurants will sponsor the 25-cent milk sold at the Fair’s “famous” milk bar, while Wegmans Food Markets will sponsor the American Dairy Association’s butter sculpture, the New York State Department of Agriculture and Markets said in a news release issued Friday. The department operates the New York State Fair.

“We are proud to bring these first-ever sponsorships into the Dairy Products Building as they will support our long-term plan to reenergize this vital piece of the Fair. We thank them for their investment and want fairgoers and dairy farmers to know that our goal going forward, as stewards of New York agriculture, is to find new ways to link more New Yorkers to our great dairy products as we have done with other New York products at the Fair,” Troy Waffner, acting director of the State Fair, said in the release.

Besides the new sponsors, the State Fair also announced that “longtime” Fair vendors Wahid Akl, David Tadros and Michael Tadros will operate the milk bar on behalf of the Fair in 2017. The milk price will remain 25 cents a cup.

The new operators are also looking at ways to speed up the “historically” long lines for milk. They will also take over operation of the yogurt-vending booth and look to diversifying the products available there.

The trio replaces the nonprofit New York State Dairy Exhibits, which had operated the milk bar since 1953, according to an April 5 article on the website of Spectrum News.

The organization indicated that state money “promised to them for the 2016 Fair never came through.” The group also said that it is “barred” from a price increase in 2017 and has “no offer of a subsidy,” according to the Spectrum report.

The sponsors

The Tully’s logo will appear on each of the seven-ounce cups of chilled white or chocolate milk sold at the milk bar.

The bar sold 398,059 cups of milk at 25 cents a cup during the 2016 Fair, representing a complete sellout of the milk available.

Byrne Dairy supplies all the milk for the milk bar.

Tully’s, a “long-time” Fair vendor, operates restaurants across upstate New York under the Tully’s, CopperTop Tavern and Good Buddy’s Pub brands.

Rochester–based Wegmans Food Markets will sponsor the butter sculpture, which traditionally has been unveiled the day before the Fair opens.

Wegmans is a “long-time partner” with the Fair, sponsoring activities including the Fair’s lost-kid tags and cooking demonstrations in the Wegmans demonstration kitchen in the Art & Home Center.

The Syracuse–based American Dairy Association North East, which represents all dairy farmers in New York state, creates and operates the butter sculpture, per the release.

Contact Reinhardt at ereinhardt@cnybj.com