CFIA detects plastic bits in smoothies

PataFoods Inc. dba Amara is recalling Amara brand Organic Smoothie Melts – Carrot Raspberry from the marketplace due to potential presence of pieces of plastic.

The problem was detected by the Canadian Food Inspection Agency.

CFIA adds more brands to onion recal

The Canadian Food Inspection Agency has added Dorsey brand, MVP brand, Pier-C brand, and Riga Farms brand onions to the recall that began Oct. 14.

The issue is salmonella food-poisoning bacteria identified in the onions imported from Mexico.

CFIA begins produce grading upgrades

In response to requests from the fruit and vegetable industry, the Canadian Food Inspection Agency is proposing changes to grades and standards.

It is opening five phases of consultation.

Each phase will be open for 60 days to solicit comments from stakeholders.

Existing grades and requirements are outlined in the "Canadian Grade Compendium: Volume 2 – Fresh Fruit or Vegetables" incorporated by reference into the Safe Food for Canadians Regulations (SFCR), administered and enforced by the CFIA. The objective of the proposed changes is to reflect the following market needs:

- changes in consumer demand and demographics

- developments in technology and innovation, including but not limited to plant and variety breeding

- improved and innovative production practices, storage and packing technologies

- harmonization of standards with international trading partners, and

new grade standards where there are none existing and for which industry consensus has been achieved

In response to these market needs, the proposed changes include new size requirements, clarifications to terminology for defects and tolerances, and the introduction of new standards for certain commodities.

                           

 

Top milk cow is on a kibbutz

 Kharta has taken the lead in milk production.

She is on a dairy farm at Kibbutz Sa’ad in Israel, and she produced 16,209 litres of milk in one lactation.

She is  part of a herd which recorded the highest average milk production in 2011 at 13,785 litres.

Kharta is the world’s record holder in the production of the main milk components, responsible for its quality: 3.73 per cent average of protein and 3.32 per cent average of fat.

Israel’s 954 dairy farms achieved a world-leading average production of 11,775 liters a year per cow.

Global pork industry is troubled

Rabobank's research unit said in a quarterly report today that the global pork industry is stalling.

Global hog prices moved sharply lower, as the global recovery in production has outpaced the rebound in demand. 

The rapid decline in prices and resulting producer losses in some markets will slow 2022 herd growth, helping offset improved herd health and reduced African swine fever (ASF) impacts. Prices have since stabilized but remain well below the peak. 

Pork prices are also lower seasonally yet remain heavily dependent on pandemic restrictions and macroeconomic trends. 

Shortage of workers is an issue in some markets, Rabobank said, and rising input costs are squeezing margins and could also reduce planned production.

Passing rising costs through to retail prices will likely reduce consumer demand, especially in income-sensitive countries.

China

Producers responded to rising costs and the continued threat of African Swine Fever outbreaks by reducing the herd.

Some high-cost producers have been forced out of business.

Demand remains weak, limited by pandemic dining restrictions. In response to this slowdown, China continues to limit imports in an effort to balance supply. That has impacted Canadian pork processors, such as Olymel and Conestoga Meats.

Given ongoing demand weakness, Rabobank expects pork supplies to remain ample following herd reduction and previous restocking, but supplies could be short of needs should economic trends improve. 

Europe 

EU hog prices are 24 per cent below the five-year average, on larger slaughter and weaker demand in both domestic and export markets. 

Producers in Germany and the Netherlands are liquidating the herd and are expected to reduce production in the coming months. Labor challenges are also an issue at some plants, though the impacts are not widespread.

United States

Hog supplies will remain tight through early 2022 but will be higher compared with prior-year levels. Even so, rising costs and added regulatory constraints are expected to moderate expansion plans, as are packing constraints made worse by labor availability. 

Domestic demand is expected to slow as higher costs are passed through to consumers, with export growth acting as a welcome buffer.

Brazil

Producers remain optimistic, despite a 34 per cent increase in feed costs. 

Sales into export markets remain strong, helped by weakness in the Brazilian currency and larger pork supplies. 

Rabobank predicts production will increase by 5.5 per cent this year and continue next year.

More brand names added to onion recall

The Canadian Food Inspection Agency has added more brand names to the recall of onions that began Oct. 14.

Dorsey brand, MVP brand, Pier-C brand, and Riga Farms all imported onions from Mexico.

And now the CFIA has added a second distributor – Keeler Family Farms of Deming, New Mexico. The other distributor is  Prosource Produce of Hailey, Idaho.

The onions are contaminated with Salmonella food-poisoning bacteria.

Carbon neutral milk hits market

Carbon neutral milk is on the market in Portland, Oregon.

The milk cartons say the company is fighting climate change by reducing greenhouse gas emissions.

What it can’t achieve through management, it makes up by purchasing carbon credits.

“Because consumers are buying this milk, we’re investing directly in dairy farms on climate reduction technologies and projects,” said Marcus Lovell Smith, chief executive officer of Neutral, which claims to be the first carbon-neutral food brand in the United States.

Some of its investment money is coming from Breakthrough Energy Ventures founded by Microsoft billionaire Bill Gates.

 

Dairy accounts for three per cent of global emissions, which is more than the aviation sector, said Carmichael Roberts, business lead of Breakthrough Energy Ventures’ investment committee.

The company worked with researchers to study the carbon footprint of dairy, from the fertilizer used to grow cattle feed, to the methane in burps, farts and manure.

It included emissions from delivery trucks and bottling plants and even what happens to empty milk cartons.

 

It pays dairy farmers for interventions that farmers otherwise might not be able to afford. 

Earlier this fall, the company worked with three family-owned dairy farms in Oregon to seed pastures with a mix of plants that are rich in tannins; they can help reduce methane.

The company is also working with farmers to install new systems for managing manure, another source of methane. On some farms, it plans to plant trees on pastures to help offset some emissions. 

Other solutions, such as seaweed feed additives, are being considered for the future. “We have a pretty technology-agnostic approach,” said Smith.

To offset remaining emissions, the brand buys certified offsets from other parts of the dairy industry, including larger dairies that use methane digesters.

The company may also invest in “regenerative” agriculture solutions that may sequester carbon in soil on farms, such as planting cover crops, though Smith says that more research is needed to understand exactly how much carbon those techniques can sequester and how long it stays underground.

The company plans to later sell carbon-neutral versions of other types of food, but wanted to begin with dairy because of its importance in terms of the climate.

 

“We started in dairy because it has a big footprint,” Smith said, and 97 per cent of households buy milk.

Chicken price-fixing trial begins

A trial for 10 poultry industry executives accused of conspiring to increase the price of chicken got underway in Denver this week.

The defendants, who worked for five U.S. poultry companies including Tyson, Pilgrim's Pride and Claxton Poultry Farms, are charged with conspiring to suppress and eliminate competition through rigging bids and fixing prices and price-related terms for broiler chickens from 2012 to 2019. The defendants have pleaded not guilty.

During his opening, Department of Justice lawyer Michael Koenig accused the defendants of coming together to create “massive, historic price increases” and blocking foodservice customers' efforts to negotiate lower prices, Bloomberg observed.

“The 10 defendants in this courtroom worked together to make sure they were not competing,” communicating in a variety of ways to coordinate pricing and guarantee high profits, Koenig was quoted as saying. “The fix was in, and the defendants didn’t budge.”

John Fagg,, lawyer for one of the defendants, said there was no agreement among these men to fix prices or to rig bids.

Mushroom recall expands

The Canadian Food Inspection Agency has added Covic International Trading Inc. mushrooms under its Jongilpoom brand to a recall of mushrooms that began Oct. 14.

The CFIA found Listeria monocytogenes, triggering the recall of Jongilpoom Enoki Mushroom.

The CFIA said it has no record of anyone falling ill from eating the mushrooms

Gary MacDonald dead at 70

Gary MacDonald of MacDon Industries and the first president of the Association of Equipment Manufacturers (AEM) has died. He was 70.

MacDonald helped form the AEM with the merging of the Construction Industry Manufacturers Association and the Equipment Manufacturers Institute in 2001. 

He was the first leader of the AEM in 2002 as Co-Chair, as well as a long-time member and leader on its Board of Directors and Ag Sector Board.

He was born in Truro, N.S., grew up in Brantford and attended the Ivey School of business at The University of Western Ontario from 1970-1974 where he played on the varsity football team and won a national championship with its rugby team.

He moved to Winnipeg in 1976 and joined the family business helping MacDon grow over the next four decades into a global leader of harvesting equipment.

No grain via Churchill for two years

There will be no grain exported from elevators at Churchill on James Bay for two years because the railway isn’t able to carry grain cars.

Sheldon Affleck, chief executive officer of the Arctic Gateway Group (AGG), said construction along part of the rail line means grain cars can’t move through.

AGG is owned by 29 Indigenous and a dozen non-Indigenous communities.

The railway runs from The Pas, Manitoba, to Churchill, where there is a deep-water grain terminal.

The current AGG emerged from a consortium that was headed by the Regina-based AGT Food and Ingredients Inc., which acquired the line and the port from Omnitrax when rail service to Churchill was cut for three years due to a number of unrepaired washouts.

Affleck explained AGG decided in April to proceed with an extensive rehabilitation of the rail line that includes laying a honeycomb-type form to aid in stabilizing the track bed that sits on top of muskeg. 

Construction didn’t begin until August after the federal government announced it will provide $40 million for the project, with the work focussing largely on the stretch between Gillam and Churchill. 

Affleck said passenger and freight service have continued, albeit with a number delays due to the construction.

“It would have been very difficult to run grain trains at the same time,” he said.

                           

Skotidakis files another appeal

John Skotidakis and his 1048547 Ontario Inc. (Skotidakis Goat Farm) have filed another appeal against the Dairy Famers of Ontario marketing board.

The Ontario Ministry of Agriculture and Food Appeal Tribunal has set Nov. 9 for a preliminary hearing via video conference.

The hearing is open to the public.

Meatpackers hit hard by COVID-19

dA congressional committee reports that the number of COVID-19 cases and deaths in meat-packing plants last year were three times higher than was believed.

At least 59,000 employees at the five largest meatpacking companies in the United States contracted the virus, which was almost three times more than previously estimated for those companies based on publicly available information, according to a staff memorandum from the House Select Subcommittee on the Coronavirus Crisis.

The subcommittee report said at least 269 of those workers died after contracting COVID-19, also nearly three times higher than previous estimates based on public data compiled by the Food and Environmental Reporting Network (FERN).

The report, released in conjunction with a subcommittee hearing Wednesday on the subject, said the latest figures come from newly obtained documents from the five meatpackers: JBS USA, Tyson Foods, Smithfield Foods, Cargill Meat Solutions and National Beef Packing Co.

The report also said internal company documents obtained by the subcommittee show that some companies dismissed indications that workers were contracting the virus at high rates and instead "prioritized profits and production over worker safety."

The report accuses the Occupational Safety and Health Administration of making a "political decision" not to set regulatory standards that would have protected workers and could have saved lives and concludes the Trump Administration failed to provide the guidance and oversight needed to mitigate the spread of the virus. 

It said the Labor Department failed to protect meatpacking workers by refusing to issue an Emergency Temporary Standard that would have required employers to take specific steps to protect workers.

Responding to the hearing, the North American Meat Institute (NAMI) said data from both FERN and the New York Times show average new case rates in the sector have been similar to or lower than case rates in the general population since the fall of 2020. Case rates in the meat sector are currently 98 per cent lower than the general U.S. population, NAMI said.

 “Frontline meat and poultry workers were among the first impacted by the pandemic, but publicly available data confirm that comprehensive measures implemented in the sector since spring 2020, including extensive infection prevention and vaccination efforts, have successfully protected the sector’s dedicated and diverse workforce as they have continued feeding Americans and keeping our economy working," said Julie Anna Potts, chief executive officer for NAMI.

Independent scientific research backs the effectiveness of COVID-19 prevention measures implemented in meatpacking facilities since spring 2020, NAMI said. The group cited University of Nebraska Medical Center research that found a combination of universal masking and physical barriers reduced cases significantly in 62 per cent of meat facilities studied.

                  

 

Yet another poultry price-fixing lawsuit

Washington State’s Attorney General Bob Ferguson has filed a lawsuit against 19 poultry processors for price fixing.

Ferguson is charging Tyson Foods, Pilgrim’s Pride, Sanderson Farms, Koch Foods, Mountaire Farms, Wayne Farms and other large processors of inflating and manipulating prices, rigging contract bids and coordinating industry supply reductions from 2008 to the present day.

Ferguson’s lawsuit mirrors the allegations of a similar lawsuit in Illinois which prompted Tyson to pay $221.5 million and Pilgrim’s Pride to pay $75 million in out-of-court settlements.

A number of poultry executives have been indicted for price fixing, with that trial getting underway this week in Denver.

Ferguson’s case has been filed on behalf of the 90 per cent of Washington consumers who purchase poultry products from the named processors, along with Washington businesses, colleges, hospitals and nursing homes.

“If you’ve eaten chicken in the last decade, this conspiracy touched your wallet,” Ferguson said in a statement. 

Altogether, Ferguson is seeking “millions” in restitution for Washington residents and in civil penalties.

Support of $2.76 million for 21 research projects

The federal and Ontario agriculture ministers announced $2.76 million of support for 21 research projects which aim to develop new innovative technologies, practices, and solutions to make the sector more competitive and resilient. 

The Ontario Agri-Food Research Initiative (OAFRI) said the 21 projects will provide Ontarians with safer, healthier, and more locally grown and made food items while boosting trade and rural economic development. 

The projects are for:

Reducing food waste by finding solutions through compostable plastic products and upcycling opportunities. 

Improving training of workers involved in food processing using digital simulations for more interactive safety training in meat plants. 

Enhancing detection of plant viruses using new technologies to help avoid production and economic losses and maintain plant health. 

Manitoba has PED case

Manitoba has had its first case of Porcine Epidemic Diarrhea virus in more than a year.

It’s at a sow barn near Blumenort in southeastern Manitoba.

The Manitoba Pork council urged producers, particularly in that area, to be on high alert against potential vectors that might allow the virus entry. 

The last previous case was in July, 2020, at a finisher barn in the Interlake region.

Ontario had an outbreak Oct. 13 in a nursery in Huron County.

Ontario bans wild boar farming

Beginning Jan. 1, it will be illegal to farm wild boar in Ontario.

Existing owners will be bought out.

Eurasian wild boar will be declared an invasive species.

Farmers with wild boar herds will be paid to “shift to other forms of production such as heritage breeds of swine, other livestock or crop production,” the government said.

AgriCorp will administer the program.

“Our government is taking action to phase out the production of Eurasian wild boar,” provincial Natural Resources Minister Greg Rickford said.

Wild boars that escape rip up the environment and in many countries are a threat to spread African Swine Fever.

The province will now fund “detection and removal efforts” and also regulate wild pigs under the provincial Invasive Species Act.

Specifically, the province will ban the “import, possession, transport, propagation, lease, trade, buying and sale of Eurasian wild boar and their hybrids” effective Jan. 1, 2022.

To help the province’s wild boar farmers toward a “faster transition,” those who own wild boar as of Oct. 19 — and who agree to stop raising wild boar within six months — will be eligible for support.

Weston sells bakery business

George Weston Ltd. is selling its bakery division to FGF Brands for $1.2 billion.

The sale includes bread, rolls and baked goods, but not its cookies, cones, crackers and wafers.

The business was put up for sale in March. The company said it intends to focus on its supermarkets (Loblaws, Zehrs, etc.) and real estate businesses.

It will use some of the proceeds of the sale to buy back shares.

FGF Brands is a family-owned, Toronto-based company with 13 facilities in Canada and the United States.

It’s audacious goal is to become the world’s largest bakery. It has about 2,500 employees.

The Weston purchase adds popular brand names, such as Wonder Bread, Ace Bakeries and D’Italiano.

FAO launches global disease information centre

The United Nations’ Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) has launched a new web-based system to allow countries to better identify and mitigate animal disease threats. 

“We need to prioritize and strengthen the animal health sector,” FAO Director-General Qu Dongyu said at an event to launch the EMPRES-i+ system. “Strong international and national animal health systems are key to prevent diseases, ensure safe and nutritious food, and protect farmers’ interests.”

The announcement comes as African Swine Fever spreads globally, recently coming closer to Canada and the United States as it swept across the Dominican Republic and Haiti. 

EMPRES-i+ replaces an earlier version, EMPRES-i, which was first launched in 2004 and has been widely used by hundreds of stakeholders ranging from local communities to global development partners.

The upgraded platform’s features include:

- cloud-based platform with ability to link to other data platforms from public health, animal health and environmental sectors. This will help users to easily access data from other sectors and use information they need for further analysis.

- advanced data analytics for users to easily identify disease events and trends. Moreover, it will also help countries to plan their disease control approaches and target interventions.

- forecasting and early warning functions to allow countries to monitor disease spread and the risk of new outbreaks. From this function, countries will be able to prepare for possible disease outbreaks well in advance.

CFIA releases documents on dead puppies

The Canadian Food Inspection Agency has released some, but far from all, documents related to a shipment of about 500 French bulldog puppies that included 35 that were dead.

The shipment of breeding stock came from the Ukraine in late June.

The CFIA censored a number of pages of the documents it has on file related to the shipment.

One question posed by a reporter at the time remains unanswered in the documents: how many similar shipments have there been this year?

The documents also reveal that the CFIA scrambled to try to answer that question, involving dozens of officials and a number of separate bureaucratic divisions.

U.S. crop input costs soaring

Prices for crop inputs are rising so fast that some retailers in the United States won’t quote a price for farmers until stocks arrive.

A survey by Farm Journal found that glyphosate prices doubled from $19 to $38 a gallon and glufosinate prices are up by 50 per cent to $70 a gallon.

In Northeast Iowa, glyphosate prices have nearly tripled – from $17 a gallon last year to $50 now.

“I presume farmers are looking ahead and if they're worried about higher prices, trying to lock in inputs now at prices they think are more reasonable,“ said Joseph Balagtas, associate professor of Agricultural Economics at Purdue University. 

“And to the extent that we have high commodity prices forecast in the next year, trying to lock in those high commodity prices, the real pinch would be is if you're locked into high prices, and something happens to the market, demand falls and we're looking at low commodity prices next year with high input costs. I think trying to lock in your margins now would make a lot of sense."

Fertilizer prices are also rising fast. Stone X Group said the Midwest wholesale anhydrous ammonia prices have risen approximately $434 since Sept. 10. That up by 65 per cent since September.

Extreme weather, combined with an energy crunch in China and Europe, are creating rising fertilizer prices around the globe. Higher natural gas prices are adding to the situation, as the issues just keep piling up.

Bloomberg reported last week that Chinese fertilizer cargoes were loaded and ready to for export, but were being held up as local authorities make additional checks.

Russia hit by African Swine Fever

Russia’s largest pork producer, Miratorg, has reported a second outbreak of African swine fever.

This time it’s at a site in Belgorod province in Central Russia.

In September the company reported an outbreak at another site in the same province.

It’s believed that the disease was spread from the wild boar population.

                           

Milk reduces fracture risk for seniors

A glass of milk, two slices of cheese and 200 grams of yoghurt was enough to reduce the risk of fractures among seniors by 33 per cent, an Australian report said.

“It’s not a lot,” said Dr. Sandra Iuliano. “But it’s enough to significantly reduce the numbers of falls and fractures in an aged care population.”

A two-year trial with 7,195 residents in aged-care facilities compared half with a good protein, milk-including, diet with another half who ate the regular fare.

It’s almost shocking that this was the first study to test the impact on the risk of fractures and falls in older adults by providing additional calcium and protein through dairy foods, said the research team at the University of Melbourne.

“Even we were quite surprised,” said Dr Iuliano.

“What we observed is that all but one of the fractures (of residents involved in the study) happened from falls.”

Previous research, led by Dr Iuliano, across 21 aged care facilities in Melbourne found that 68 per cent of residents were malnourished or at risk of malnutrition.

“By assessing what people were actually eating we found that a major contributor to malnutrition is inadequate protein intake,” she said.

In that study the researchers found that aged care residents were typically given a daily average equivalent to just one serving of a high-protein food – such as lean meat, seafood, eggs, poultry and legumes – compared with a recommended two servings a day.

And in terms of dairy protein – milk, cheese, yoghurt – residents were “receiving the equivalent of just one serving a day, compared with a recommended four servings a day”.

 

Those on the good diet experienced a 33 per cent reduction in all fractures, a 46 per cent reduction in hip fractures, and an 11 per cent reduction in falls, with a significant reduction apparent between three and five months after the trial began.

                           

 

Mushrooms on recall

Carleton Mushroom is recalling sliced white mushrooms prepared for Metro Brands.

The Canadian Food Inspection Agency testing identified Listeria monocytogenes food-poisoning bacteria.

The CFIA said it has no reports of consumers falling ill after consuming these mushrooms.

Metro Brands are sold in Metro and Food Basics supermarkets. 

U.K. opens market to Kiwi dairy

The United Kingdom has thrown its dairy sector under the bus with a new trade deal with New Zealand that includes eliminating tariffs on dairy products within five years.

There will be transitional quotas for butter and cheese. 

Fonterra welcomed the news with chief executive Miles Hurrell describing it as “a fantastic result for New Zealand”.

Mexican pork industry analysed

Either Mexico’s pork industry will address its challenges or it will falter, according to a report by RoboResearch, a division of Rabobank.

The challenges are disease outbreaks, such as Porcine Epidemic Diarrhea virus and PRRS, the report said, and the farming sector needs investments in biosecurity, worker education and further consolidations.

Resolving those challenges will provide processors with a more stable supply of market hogs so it can continue to advance. However, if supply disruptions continue, the processing sector will struggle.

In the last 30 years, the pork industry in Mexico has transformed from a highly fragmented, low-tech industry by investing in production facilities, breeding and nutrition programs and adding modern processing plants and distribution systems, RaboResearch said.

The modernization efforts have boosted local pork demand and aided the country in gaining access to global markets.

The sow herd has increased from 730,000 in 2014 to more than a million now.

The degree of integration has increased from 30 to 55 per cent.

The pork processing sector has also changed to increase meat production, to develop export markets and to mature from selling carcasses to processing high-value cuts and processed products.

 In 2020, the industry produced more that 1.6 million tonnes, up from 1.2 million metric tons in 2014,  however, destabilizing events in the market have curtailed growth.

“Inconsistent hog supplies are raising cost and creating product inconsistencies,” the report said. 

“At the same time, an underdeveloped cold chain and slow progress on brand development are threatening industry growth and financial returns.”

The report suggests that additional investment will afford Mexico's pork industry an opportunity to stabilize production and generate more predictable financial returns. 

To advance modernization efforts, the RaboResearch analysts recommend the industry accelerate investments in biosecurity and worker education, consolidate weaker players in a move toward vertical integration and raise carcass values through selling higher value products and growth in exports.

However, if the industry pauses its modernization pathway, it will leave itself "exposed to the volatility that has been associated with herd health challenges and the tighter margins associated with inconsistent pork quality," wrote the analysts.

CFIA names Gwillimdale in onion recall

The Canadian Food Inspection Agency has updated the recall of onions from Mexico to identify Gwillimdale Farms as a brand name involved.

The onions came to Canada via Prosource Produce of Hailey, Idaho.

The whole onions were sold at retail in two, three and five-pound packages and also to restaurants, foodservice companies, hospitals, nursing homes and cafeterias.

The recall is based on the discovery of salmonella food-poisoning bacteria. The CFIA says there have been no reports of human illness in Canada.

De Dell Seeds has new owner

Will Trudell is now the owner of De Dell Seeds, taking over from his father and founder Vince Trudell.

De Dell Seeds has grown and evolved over the past 22 years while remaining a family company. Will has been vice-president for 10 years.

Will said in a release that he does not intend to make any major changes to company polices but will continue to uphold the same high standards for customer service his father taught him. 

“We value our loyal dealers and customers who have trusted us from the very beginning, as well as those who have joined us along the way, and we are very thankful for the continued support.

 “We have a great team in our research department who have done a good job of breeding improved hybrids and we have already advanced a long way compared to the early days.” 

The company markets 36 conventional corn hybrids, 12 of which are available in an organic version, ranging from 2000 CHU (67 Days) up to 3400 CHU (114 Days). 

De Dell has a network of dealers from coast-to-coast in Canada, as well as a smaller network of dealers in the United States. 

Agropur invests in Wisconsin cheese plant

Agropur is investing $168 million to build a new facility to accommodate increased production of cheese and dairy ingredients at its plant in Little Chute, Wis. 

It is the company’s second-largest investment in the United States.

“Having a new state-of-the-art facility in Little Chute will help us solidify our leadership position in the dairy industry,” said Doug Simon, president of U.S. operations at Agropur. 

“Beyond speed and efficiency, the new processes and equipment will provide greater flexibility and will allow Agropur to offer a broader line of products to meet our customers’ needs.”

The investment will increase the plant’s capacity from 300 to 750 million pounds of milk per year.

The 210,000-square-foot plant will be built just north of its existing Little Chute facility and will include a waste-water treatment facility that will generate energy.

The expanded plant is expected to be fully operational by early 2023 and will create 54 new jobs.