Thoughts are that Dean Foods has cut so much already that the only places left to cut are labor costs. And they've already cut labor costs so much through previous rounds of cuts, that any more labor cuts are just going to result in service becoming even worse.
Currently, it's a sinking ship. I'd say it's 50/50 that it can be patched up enough to avoid sinking.
Best shot long term will be to go private and bring in a new executive team that has experience in the business and not just with furniture. Need to change back into a dairy products company that also sells fluid milk instead of a fluid milk company that sells a few other dairy products.
Worst case scenario for the long term would be selling off the ice cream business to turn a quick buck leaving them with nothing but low/no margin fluid milk.
Not going to find a buyer for the whole business due to debt and pension liability. Would be cheaper to build your own facilities then take the labor agreements and pension liability of a lot of the locations.
Good post by @ZjDnH0m-uda.