Dairy Farmers of America (DFA) Ingredient Manufacturing Facility

The Dairy Farmers of America (DFA) started construction of a new manufacturing facility for dairy ingredients in April 2012.

The new plant is located at the second phase of New River Industrial Park near Fallon in Nevada, US. The facility was officially inaugurated in September 2014.

The plant processes approximately 1.5 million pounds of raw milk a day into 250,000lb of dried dairy ingredients. The project was supported by the City of Fallon and the Churchill Economic Development Authority.

The new facility provides jobs to 45 people. It has also increased employment opportunities in member farms and agriculture support industries. The estimated investment for the construction was $85m.

Details of the DFA dairy ingredients facility

The new facility is built on a 31.5-acre site bought from the City of Fallon in March 2012. The total floor space of the facility is approximately 110,000ft².

It has the capacity to process roughly 250,000 pounds of dried dairy ingredients a day for both domestic and international markets. The capacity is expected to increase to four million pounds of dried dairy ingredients a day in the future.

Products from the new US DFA plant

The Global Dairy Products Group (GDPG) division of the DFA produces cheese, butter and dairy ingredients at the new facility.

It also produces consumer branded products such as Borden, Cheese, Plugrá gourmet butter, Keller’s, Sport Shake energy milkshake and Creamery. It also produces American and Italian cheeses and a wide range of dairy ingredients.

The facility produces whole milk powder based on the demand for the product.

The technology used at the Fallon dairy plant

The new facility uses dryer processing technology developed by GEA Process Engineering. It utilises the spray-drying technology for processing and producing world-class, dairy powder dairy products.

Dairy ingredients plant construction

The new manufacturing facility broke ground for construction in April 2012 and was completed in September 2014.

The facilities at the plant include a 30,000ft² whole milk dryer facility, a dryer and packaging area, a 40,000ft² warehouse and 5,000ft² of office space.

Contractors involved with the Dairy Farmers of America’s plant

The construction contract for the new facility was awarded to Harris Construction, a company based in Fresno, California. Pacific Process of New Zealand and California-based EA Bonelli Architects were awarded a consultancy contract for the project. The processing contract for the facility was awarded to GEA Process Engineering based in Hudson, Wisconsin.

Marketing commentary for the DFA

The DFA is one of the foremost milk marketing cooperative and dairy food processors based in the US. It is owned by roughly 16,000 dairy producers around the country.

The new dairy manufacturing plant at New River Business Park, western Nevada, provides the DFA with the opportunity to enter into new market segments.

The new facility is surrounded by ample water and a climate conducive to agriculture. It has low feed costs with plentiful high desert growth and charges no corporate or personal income, inheritance or business inventory tax.

The place is also suitable for the expansion of the dairy business because it has a wide range of resources to support development with agriculture-friendly regulations and the state and local governments provide many incentives and programmes for agriculture development.

The Fallon area has 22 dairy farms and produces about an annual average of 22,143lb of milk per cow. The annual production of milk in the Fallon area is approximately 620 million pounds.

Glanbia Ingredients Ireland (GIL) initiated the construction of a new dairy processing facility at Belview in County Kilkenny, Ireland, in May 2013.

Shamrock Farms initiated the construction of a new dairy manufacturing facility at Augusta County in Virginia in March 2013.