Davisco Foods has broken ground on a $40 million state-of-the- art mozzarella cheese plant adjacent to its food ingredient plant in South Dakota, US.
The new dairy plant will initially support the milk production from 30,000 cows, and eventually expand to require the milk production from 75,000 cows, requiring up to 5 million pounds of milk per day.
Land O'Lakes will market the cheese produced at the new plant, and will partner with Davisco Foods in milk procurement for the plant.
"This is a major investment for us at Davisco that represents an expanded partnership between the state of South Dakota, Lake Norden, Davisco, Land O'Lakes, and area milk producers," said Mark Davis, CEO of Davisco Foods International.
"The new Lake Norden facility will give area farmers a steady and reliable market for milk and make it possible for Davisco to increase its overall cheese production capabilities. We also intend to process the whey produced at the new cheese plant at our adjacent food ingredient plant to make our specialty whey protein isolates."
"In today's highly competitive dairy industry environment, size, scale and operating efficiency are critical to success," said Land O'Lakes president and CEO Jack Gherty. "The new plant, and our supply and marketing agreement, address all three of those issues."
Davisco Foods has operated the Lake Norden facility for 19 years. Construction on the new project will take approximately 15-18 months to complete.
Davisco Foods International is a privately held, family-owned, dairy business headquartered in Minnesota. Operating five dairy processing plants (cheese, whey and other dairy-based food ingredients), Davisco produces more than 600,000 pounds of cheese daily, and is one of the largest suppliers of cheese to Kraft Foods.
Land O'Lakes, is a USl, farmer-owned food and agricultural cooperative, with sales of $6 billion and does business in more than fifty countries.