Dairy Farmers of America recently celebrated the opening of a dairy ingredients plant in Garden City, Kansas, in early November. Construction started on the Garden City facility in October 2015, and the first load of milk was delivered in late September.
The Garden City plant is a partnership between DFA and 12 of its member farms in southwest Kansas. The aim is to help support the industry’s continued growth in this part of the state as well as globally.
“This investment not only fills an important need for the region by providing a local home for DFA members’ milk, which was previously being transported to other areas of the country, but it also supports and enhances our global ingredients strategy, which benefits all our farmer members,” Rick Smith, president and CEO at DFA, said.
DFA, a cooperative owned by family farmers, continues to look for opportunities to expand the dairy industry and give its farmer-owners added value, according to Smith.
Kansas Gov. Sam Brownback attended the opening festivities and stressed the importance of the dairy industry in the state of Kansas.
“With this new plant, Kansas will play an even bigger role in helping to feed the world,” Brownback said.
The DFA Garden City plant brought 66 new jobs to the area and it will produce whole and skim milk powder, nonfat dry milk powder and cream, and receives approximately 4 million pounds of milk a day from regional farms.
Kansas dairy farmer and DFA board member Dan Senestraro is excited about the investment in the new plant, especially since it connects family farms to family tables in a sustainable and traceable way.
“This plant allows us to trace the product from the time it leaves the farm as raw milk to the time it arrives at the store, which is important to many consumers today,” Senestraro said.
According to DFA, beyond the traceable aspects of the product, DFA Garden City also focuses on sustainability, including operating as a water-neutral facility. With this process, all the water utilized at the plant is recycled and ultimately used to water landscaping and parks throughout the city.
The 270,000-square-foot, $235 million plant is located south of Garden City along U.S. Highway 83. Alan McEntee, Garden City plant program manager, told the Garden City Telegram that the plant will receive 84 truckloads of milk a day from 80,000 cows and produce 550,000 pounds of whole milk powder daily to be shipped in 17 loads across the country and the world.
Source: High Plains Journal
