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Site of new Michigan dairy plant named

Glanbia, Select Milk Producers Inc. and Dairy Farmers of America have announced construction of their new joint milk processing plant will start next month in St. Johns, Michigan.

John Dardis with Glanbia tells Brownfield the $470 million cheese and whey facility will be able to process more than eight million pounds of milk per day.  “You’re talking about 100,000 cows supplying the volume need for the eight million pounds per day and all told, that’s about 20 percent of dairy production in Michigan.”

The plant will be able to produce about 300 million pounds of cheese annually. Iowa-based Proliant is building an adjoining $85 million facility to use the byproducts of the cheese making process which will be largest whey permeate processing plant in North America.  “They’ll take all the whey permeate from the plant and work on that for both human food and animal feed.”

Dardis says the plant is expected to start accepting milk in the fourth quarter of 2020.

An oversupply of milk and high transportation costs because of a lack of processing caused Michigan milk producers to lose more than $160 million last year. Michigan dairy farmers received the lowest milk price in the country for June, $14.80 per hundred pounds of milk.

AUDIO: Interview with John Dardis