DFA official, dairy producer provide details about Meadowlark plant

Officials associated with the Meadowlark dairy plant being constructed in Garden City shared more details about the plant and the products it will produce following a groundbreaking ceremony Thursday.
Share on twitter
Share on facebook
Share on linkedin
Share on whatsapp
Share on email

Until now, officials from Dairy Farmers of America have been tight-lipped about the approximately 321,000-square-foot, $235 million plant. But after Thursday’s ceremony, a DFA official and a local dairy producer shared more information about DFA, those involved with the project, and the products that will be produced at the Meadowlark Dairy Nutrition dairy dryer plant.
Meadowlark Dairy Nutrition, LLC, is a subsidiary of Dairy Farmers of America, a milk marketing cooperative owned by 14,000 dairy farmers across the U.S., Monica Massey, senior vice president of DFA, said Thursday in an email to The Telegram.
“Our primary job is to pick up the milk produced on our member farms each day, to pay members for this milk, and then to bring it to processing plants where is it made into dairy products such as cheese, ice cream, butter and fluid milk,” she said, adding that DFA is also a dairy foods company that produces such products as Borden’s Cheese and Hiland Dairy products.
Sixteen southwest Kansas dairy producers are members of DFA, Massey said. Of those, 12 are member partners who are investing in the Garden City plant.
Massey was unable to release the names of those producers as of press time.
In February, a press release issued by DFA stated it was in partnership with a Chinese dairy company, Inner Mongolia Yili Industrial Group, and Kansas dairy producers to build a facility somewhere in Kansas.
Local officials announced plans for the plant in August, at which point a development and lease-purchase agreement was entered between the city and Meadowlark.
As the project neared finalization, Massey said Yili decided to “pause on moving forward as an investor” due to extreme volatility in global milk prices.
“We, however, did not want to pause on moving forward with the project as we have our funding in place and our member partners are in place,” Massey said. “We expect Yili to remain a key customer and remain open to considering Yili as an investor in the future.”
She said DFA is the majority investor of the plant, but declined to provide details about the amount the company is investing.
“We do not disclose details of our investment structure,” Massey said.
Massey said the product that will be produced at the Garden City plant is milk powder, which is milk that is dried and used as an ingredient in a variety of other products, such as cheese powders, whey proteins and infant formulas.
“Easily transported and handled, they are ideal for the global marketplace,” Massey said.
The Meadowlark plant will include milk receiving and cream load-out, raw milk processing, pasteurized processing, milk evaporation, milk drying, filling and packaging, dry warehousing, shipping, support and utility spaces, sanitation corridors, office space and employee wellness areas.
Dan Senestraro, owner of East Side Dairy in Johnson City, is one of the 12 DFA members investing in the plant.
Following Thursday’s groundbreaking, Senstraro said the plant will help local dairy producers save on distribution costs due to its close proximity.
“Right now, we’ve got all this milk in this area, and it goes to a lot of places. It goes to Oklahoma, Texas, sometimes Louisiana, sometimes it goes to Colorado,” Senestraro said.
Because the end product will be milk powder, it will be a good product for export, he said.
“This is a pretty expensive plant. You can build cheaper powder plants, but you’ve given up some versatility,” Senestraro said. “The processes here are going to be real high-quality and versatile.”
He said that will allow for the production of a variety of other products, such as cream that can be sold to butter or ice cream plants, as demand dictates, which will help dairy producers when other markets don’t fare as well.
Groundwork at the site is expected to begin soon, and the plant’s estimated opening date is May 31, 2017.
 
Source: GFC Telegram
 

Mirá También

Así lo expresó Domingo Possetto, secretario de la seccional Rafaela, quien además, afirmó que a los productores «habitualmente los ignoran los gobiernos». Además, reconoció la labor de los empresarios de las firmas locales y aseguró que están «esperanzados» con la negociación entre SanCor y Adecoagro.

Te puede interesar

Notas
Relacionadas