5 fabulous Plants!

Dairy Foods,  Sept, 2000  

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A pause in consolidation gives companies the ability to update and expand the best of acquired assets

AS WE LOOK BACK AT THE STATE OF DAIRY MANUFACTURING OVER THE PAST 12 MONTHS, WE REALIZE WHAT A REMARKABLE YEAR THIS HAS BEEN. CONSOLIDATION HAS SLOWED JUST A BIT, GIVING THE COMPANIES INVOLVED A CHANCE TO CATCH THEIR BREATHS AND LOOK AT WHAT THEY'VE INHERITED OVER THE PAST COUPLE OF YEARS. NOW IT'S TIME TO CAPITALIZE ON THOSE ACQUIRED PLANTS, MAYBE EVEN BUILD UPON (OR WITHIN) THEM.

THAT'S THE MESSAGE BEHIND TWO OF THE FIVE PLANTS PROFILED IN THIS, OUR THIRD ANNUAL LOOK AT SOME OF THE DAIRY INDUSTRY'S MOST OUTSTANDING MANUFACTURING FACILITIES. TWO MORE HAVE REMAINED IN THE SAME HANDS SINCE THEIR INCEPTION, AND THE FIFTH IS A RARE GREENFIELD BUILDING.

* When Land O'Lakes bought Elm Grove Dairy, it also got an old Gold Bond Plant in Richland Center, Wis. LOL gutted it, creating a modern ESL cultured and fluid plant-which caught the eye of new parent Dean Foods Co.

* Glanbia Foods' Gooding, Idaho, cheese plant just completed its third expansion (just as the company took on its third name). This jewel in the crown of Ireland's Glanbia Plc now makes more cheese than the entire Republic of Ireland.

* Dannon's West Jordan, Utah, yogurt plant is not only efficient, it's flexible. In its 2 1/2-year history, it has switched from cup yogurts to bottled water to drinkable yogurt.

* Wells' Dairy, LeMars, Iowa, already had the world's largest freestanding ice cream facility at its South plant. Expansion was under way in 1999 when a fire knocked the plant out of commission. Ten weeks later, the operation came back not only rebuilt but enlarged.

* Santee Dairies in 1998 christened one of the country's most automated milk plants, a $100 million operation in City of Industry, Calif.

Some of these plants weren't necessarily built for peak performance. They achieved it the old-fashioned way, earning it through new bricks and mortar attached to old, through automation and new equipment brought in whenever capital spending budgets allowed.

While these stories highlight the physical buildings, none of these manufacturing marvels would have output any product without the dedicated engineering teams that put them together. Our hats are off to them!

DEAN FOODS/LAND O'LAKES, Richland Center, Wisconsin

From Relic to ESL Showcase

While technically a renovation, Dean Foods' plant in Richland Center, Wis. is, for all practical purposes, a new facility. Long before Dean purchased the Land O'Lakes Fluid Div. in July, LOL bought Elm Grove Dairy, which itself had moved into an old Gold Bond plant and completely renovated and expanded the facility. The plant is now one of the most modern dairy facilities in the country.

With startup last year, the 95,000-sq-ft plant was to be both Land O'Lakes' dedicated facility to produce extended shelf life fluid products and a key cultured products plant, and these are still the products run there. It has a plastic bottle line, two gabletop lines and six cultured product lines. All equipment was purchased and installed before the Dean acquisition.

The plastic bottle line is the sole production facility for Land O'Lakes' Grip'n Go bottles. Running 12-oz and quart bottles, the line features the only Stork ESL filler currently installed in a dairy plant in North America.

The gabletop equipment runs a full line of fluid products including all fat levels of milk and cream as well as flavored milk, organic milk and soymilk. One of the gabletop lines is dedicated to half-gallons, while the other runs quarts and smaller sizes. Both fillers include fitment applicators.

The plant produces nonfat, light and organic yogurt packaged in 6- and 8-oz cups; nonfat, light, fullfat and organic sour cream packaged in 8-, 16-, 24- and 32-oz containers as well as 3-lb, 5-lb and bulk packs; and 8 oz dips.

Richland Center receives milk from local producers, which is cold-separated, and the skim milk and cream are stored separately. Cultured and fluid products have separate milk processing operations and each combines milk and cream to yield milk of the desired fat content for the products it is running. Milk for cultured products is then HTST-pasteurized in a plate heat exchanger rated at 22,000 lb per hour. Milk for fluid products is processed in a VTIS steam injection system rated at 45,000 lb per hour.

The plant is equipped with a state-of-the-art PLC-based process control system, which incorporates operator interface terminals at strategic points throughout the plant, starting with milk receiving and continuing through batching processing and packaging. The system contains recipes for batching and processing that can be recalled by a touch.

Richland Center ships directly to customers, most of them in the Midwest, but selected products are distributed nationally.

Jack Mans, Plant Operations Editor

DEAN FOODS/LAND O'LAKES

Location: Richland Center, Wis.

Products: ESL fluid milk in gabletop cartons and plastic bottles; cultured products