Maine Dairy Processor to Reopen After Five Years of Being Closed

Thu, 12 Nov 2020 05:54:26 GMT

A dairy processing plant in Maine plans to reopen after being closed for five years.

Pineland Farms Dairy Co., owned by the non-profit Libra Foundation, will start operating a 75,000 square foot cheese processor in July according to the Bangor Daily News .

The cheese plant is being retrofitted inside a former fluid milk plant in Bangor, Maine that was closed by Dean Foods in 2013. Pineland Farms bought the facility in 2017.

The plant will serve as a replacement to a cheese processing facility that was sold by Pineland Farms when Bob Evans Farms Inc. acquired the Pineland Farms Potato Co. in January 2017. The facility was located in Mars Hill, Maine.

Costs to renovate the plant were projected at $6 million but are now at $10 million.

The plant has hired 16 employees thus far and may hire up to 50 people when it is completely operational. It will also include a milk blend operation that will sell 300 gallon totes for milk ingredients at other processors for products like soup or ice cream.

The reopening of the dairy plant will help local producers as they won’t have to haul milk as far away as Boston.

“The renovation and reopening of the Bangor facility is great news for the state and our [Dairy Farmers of America] family farms in this area, as it will help provide increased processing capacity as well as help create efficiencies in the local milk shed,” says Brad Keating, chief operating officer for Dairy Farmers of America.

DFA has 50 members in Maine, which is about 30% of the state’s producers and owns Oakhurst Dairy in Portland.

Pineland Farms owns a number of agriculture businesses on the 5,000 acre farm near New Gloucester, Maine, including a 300 acre produce farm, an equestrian center and a dairy farm.

Select Sires Reveals Cooperative Merger Creating Premier Select Sires

Thu, 12 Nov 2020 05:53:45 GMT

Combining forces, the Select Sire Power, Inc. and Southeast Select Sires, Inc. will officially become one and renamed Premier Select Sires, Inc. effective Jan. 1, 2019.

The same specialists who currently serve beef and dairy customers will continue to support their local member-owners, only as part of a larger team with a wider network of in-house support, according to Select Sires. Premier Select Sires will combine the territories of the two previous cooperatives, covering a total of 23 states.

These states include:

Maine
Vermont
Maryland
New Hampshire
Massachusetts
Delaware
Connecticut
New York
Pennsylvania
New Jersey
Rhode Island
West Virginia
Virginia
North Carolina
Florida
Kansas
Tennessee
Arkansas
Louisiana
Mississippi
Alabama
Georgia
And Washington DC

“Premier Select Sires is the result of combining two financially strong cooperatives in order to benefit both memberships with pooled resources. We look forward to working together to continue to be the Premier genetic provider,” said Tim Riley, General Manager of Southeast Select Sires, in a press release.

Because of an aligned set of strengths and goals, the boards of Select Sire Power and Southeast Select Sires unanimously approved the affiliation agreement.

“This is a very exciting time for both organizations and we look forward to charting a successful future together. The larger cooperative will allow us to provide greater diversity of products and services to meet the modern needs of beef and dairy producers throughout our territory,” said Mark Carpenter, General Manager of Select Sire Power and future CEO of Premier Select Sires.

This is not the first merger the company has experienced throughout the past two years. In June 2017, Select Sires and Accelerated Genetics announced that Select Sires would acquire the assets of Accelerated Genetics.

This news also comes after the announcement of the holding companies Alta Genetics and GENEX forming their new organization, URUS. The intent to merge Koepon Holding BV and Cooperative Resources International (CRI) was first announced last December. Included in the merger are the following companies: AgSource , Alta Genetics , GENEX , Jetstream Genetics , PEAK/GENESIS , SCCL and VAS .