DFA Partners With Northeast Dairies to Build New Plant

KANSAS CITY, Mo.Dairy Farmers of America (DFA) and Craigs Station Ventures (CSV) joined Sept. 20 to break ground on a $12 million cold milk separation facility in York, N.Y. The collaboration is the first in which DFA is partnering directly with a farmer group for a project that will benefit all of the Cooperatives farmer owners. Construction is scheduled for completion in summer 2014.

Partnering with farmers allows DFA and our partners to utilize combined capital to develop sound projects that will deliver value to all DFA members," said Rick Smith, president and chief executive officer of DFA. This investment is consistent with our strategy to deliver value to members by better serving our customers, maintaining markets for our members and developing local plant opportunities."

The plant will help answer the regions increasing demand for cream, created by existing dairy processors expanding production capabilities and new processors entering the marketplace. The remaining skim will be sold to local yogurt and cheese plants.

When complete, the plant will process nearly 1 million pounds of milk daily, with the capacity to increase to 2 million pounds. The facility will employ 11 full-time staff and may provide value-added production in the future.

Built on a dairy, the 14,000-square-foot plant will emphasize traceability, sustainability and innovation. In an effort to reduce the facilitys carbon footprint, it will be connected to an anaerobic digester, which will convert manure into renewable energy for the facility.

The plant is one of DFA's many recent expansions. The milk marketing cooperative and dairy food processor recently acquired Dairy Maid, a milk, juice and fruit drink processor based in Frederick, Md. DFA connects nearly 13,000 dairies across the country.