From the dairy farm on the edge of Genesee County, N.Y., launching a multimillion dollar milk separation project to cater to the needs of two new yogurt plants, to the refrigerated trucking companies hauling yogurt around the Northeast, the yogurt boom has had quite a ripple effect and promises to grow more.
«Our last two years have been the biggest commitment of capital in our history,» said Larry Webster, CEO of Upstate Niagara Cooperative, which is supplying the milk to both Alpina Foods’ and Müller Quaker Dairy’s yogurt plants.
Webster won’t say exactly how much capital he’s talking about, but the investment includes buying a yogurt plant in the northern part of New York state and expanding its western New York plants. Upstate is also an owner of O-At-Ka Milk Products Cooperative, which has expanded its Batavia, N.Y., plant, too.
The largest employer in Genesee County, O-At-Ka recently completed a $16 million expansion, adding 15 employees and the ability to make liquid protein concentrate out of excess milk. The concentrate can be used in a variety of products and is one way to give yogurt the extra protein and thick consistency of Greek yogurt without all the messy straining of traditional Greek yogurt.
It’s not all Greek to Genesee County and the surrounding area, though, as other dairy industry developments independent of the yogurt boom are promising jobs and economic growth of their own:
• Cheese maker Yancey’s Fancy Inc. in Pembroke, N.Y., tripled its number of employees in the last seven years and is now planning to quadruple its production space by building a new 100,000-square foot manufacturing and distribution facility. The company needs more space because it recently began making 18-month-aged medium cheddar for Wegmans and intends to add Swiss cheeses to its ever-expanding line.
• Three-year-old First Light Farm and Creamery is exploiting an artisan niche in the area for fresh goat’s milk cheese and organic cow’s milk cheese. When the brothers Sandvoss aren’t milking their goats or making cheese just southeast of Batavia, they’re selling cheese at local farm markets, or teaching local food enthusiasts how to make cheese themselves.
• Perry’s Ice Cream, just over the Genesee-Erie county line in Akron, N.Y., has been expanding its footprint over the last several years by selling Perry’s ice cream in Pittsburgh and New England. In late 2012, Perry’s won a co-packing contract for a brand selling in several southern states. Over two years, the company’s year-round employment rose from 303 to 312.
«It’s kind of like a snowball effect,» said Steven G. Hyde, president and CEO of the Genesee County Economic Development Center. The county’s economic development arm has smoothed the way for yogurt and other food production companies to land in Batavia by providing shovel-ready sites in an agricultural development park, bringing together grant and tax-incentive efforts and helping to line up job training for new food production workers.
The development center’s analysis of the impact of the Alpina and Müller Quaker plants is 282 more jobs in the supply chain within three years. These include milk producers and processors, packaging makers, trucking companies, caterers and cleaners all getting business from the yogurt plants. And then there’s an additional 174 indirect jobs, meaning, for example, the extra help the grocery store or restaurant has to hire because more people — yogurt plant workers and people working in the supply chain — are eating higher off the hog.
The jobs and money aren’t limited to Genesee County, as workers are coming from the larger area. And the supply chain reaches into nearby counties as well.
Leonard’s Express in Farmington, N.Y., in Ontario County, is picking up yogurt at the Batavia plants and taking it around the Northeast, adding on to its fleet to handle the extra refrigerated trucking business.
«As new businesses come in, it obviously benefits all of us,» said Ken Johnson, CEO of Leonard’s. «We could probably grow more if we could find the qualified drivers.»
New projects
A new $12 million milk separation plant on Noblehurst Farms in York, N.Y., will use a cold process to separate cream from the milk of eight local farms, leaving a skim milk they feel will more more marketable to high-protein Greek yogurt manufacturers.
«Nobody else is doing this. They are inventive, they are ahead of their time,» said Julie A. Marshall, director of Livingston County Development Group.
The project is a joint venture of the farms, which supply the milk, and Dairy Farms of America, a multistate milk cooperative.
Meanwhile, a few miles away in neighboring Genesee County, the epicenter of dairy farms in dairy-rich New York state, Trystan and Max Sandvoss are trying something different at First Light Farm. Originally from the New York City area, the brothers learned to make cheese in the Pacific Northwest and then wanted to break out on their own.
«We are aware that there are a lot of people in dairy here,» Trystan Sandvoss said. «We needed something unique. Goat’s milk provides that opportunity.» The Sandvosses use milk from their goat herd and organic milk from nearby Grassland Dairy to make a variety of fresh and aged cheeses.
With all the dairy growth in the area, it might seem that dairy farms are getting bigger, too. But that’s not the case.
Upstate’s Webster said much of the milk going to the yogurt plants now is being redirected from production of shelf-stable dried milk. That’s a boon because farmers get paid more for their milk when it ends up in yogurt.
«Any time you have a new market for the milk, it’s great, and it’s local. If we don’t have to transport the milk long distances, it’s good for everyone,» Webster said.
But not all local farmers are part of the Upstate cooperative. Many participate in Dairylea, another cooperative that supplies mozzarella cheese makers in Buffalo.
Curt Norton manages Oak Orchard Dairy in Elba, N.Y., a family farm business with nearly 1,000 cows. Norton said Oak Orchard’s milk used to go to the Chobani yogurt plant in Chenango County, N.Y., but transportation logistics shifted it to Buffalo about six months ago.
Yogurt around the state has created greater security in the dairy business rather than lining farmers’ pockets, Norton suggested.
«Indirectly, it has created a market that we were losing on the fluid side,» he said. «Ultimately, it’s kept our markets alive.»
Even while people are eating more yogurt, changing tastes and federal regulations have cut the legs out from under fluid milk sales, industry members say. Indeed, new rules on calories and fat content in school lunches are keeping flavored milk or fuller-tasting whole and 2-percent milk out of school cafeterias.
Dairy producers can hope, though, that kids will like the federal program’s newest experiment: adding Greek yogurt to school lunches.
Source: USA Today