Production starts at Glanbia’s new €400m US cheese plant

Glanbia’s new state-of-the-art cheese and whey plant in Michigan began receiving its first deliveries of milk today. The plant is a joint venture between Glanbia, Dairy Farmers of America (DFA) and Select Milk Producers – a group of 99 dairy farmer suppliers.

As part of the joint venture, Glanbia will hold a 50% stake in the new business, while DFA and Select Milk Producers will own the remaining 50%. An eight-month commissioning process will now begin at the new plant.

Once fully up and running, Glanbia states that the facility will have process capacity for around 1.3bn litres of milk every year (3.6m litres per day), which will be processed into 135,000t of cheese. The whey by-product from this cheese will be used in Glanbia’s performance nutrition business.

The final cost of the plant came in at $470m (€400m), which is significantly higher than the original estimated cost, understood to have been around $400m (€337m) when the plans were first unveiled in 2017.

Commissioning

“We are very pleased to reach this important milestone on our journey to deliver a new ultra-modern dairy facility in Michigan for our customers. As we enter this key commissioning phase and begin production at the plant, I would like to thank the entire Glanbia Nutritionals team, and in particular the onsite team, whose expertise and focus have kept the project on track and on budget particularly during the challenges of the last seven months. In addition, I would like to thank the State and City authorities for their continued support and of course our great partners, DFA and Select Milk Producers,” said Brian Phelan, CEO of Glanbia's nutritionals division.