Glanbia going flat out in Idaho and New Mexico
In Idaho, they are “swimming” in milk, the first pre-requisite for processing efficiently at full capacity.
It’s a different story in states like Wisconsin, for many years the heartland of US dairy production, but now hit by falling milk production and high milk prices, which have forced many processors to close plants.
In Idaho, Glanbia claim unbeatable processing efficiency levels, especially at their Gooding cheese plant, where a truckload of milk is processed every nine and a half minutes into 1,800 barrels of cheese, each containing 525 lbs of cheese worth $1,123, plus whey products.
That continues around the clock, 365 days a year.
Following a big investment in the Gooding plant in 1997, few other barrel cheese plants are likely to match its modern equipment for efficiency in supplying processed cheese.
The Irish-American company is the major supplier, out of Gooding, to four of the biggest cheese slicing companies in the US, who sell most of the product on to the fast food industry.
Glanbia are fully confident of being competitive enough to hold onto customers like these, valued for their secure retail opportunities.
Meanwhile, cheddars from their Twin Falls plant recently won three gold medals in the World Cheese Championships, in which the best cheeses from 17 countries were matched.
It is a measure of Glanbia’s reputation that when two of the dairy farming leaders in the US looked for a cheese processing partner in New Mexico, they turned to the Irish-American company.
The result is Southwest Cheese Company, 50% owned by Glanbia plc, with the balance primarily owned by Dairy Farmers of America, the largest dairy co-op in the US, and Select Milk Producers, a New Mexico co-op situated in the fastest growing milk producing region in the US.
The farmers needed cheese manufacturing expertise, and market leader Glanbia was the place to go.
At full capacity, Southwest Cheese will process over 2.4 billion pounds of milk and produce in excess of 250 million pounds of cheese and 16.5 million pounds of high value-added whey proteins each year.
It is situated in Curry and Roosevelt Counties, the 15th and 16th highest milk producing counties in the US.
It’s one more step in Glanbia’s drive to become one of the most relevant suppliers in the international dairy business, and ties in also with its objective to get more than 50% of profits from international divisions and joint ventures.
* Asked what is now the greatest challenge for Glanbia in Idaho, cheese operations vice-president John Lanigan sums up with one word — “people”.
With only 2% unemployment in the state, the company has to work hard to attract and hold onto workers.
Interestingly, an influx of Bosnian refugees in the 1990s was a godsend for Glanbia, they now make up half of the production staff in the Twin Falls plant.
Getting workers may become an even more pressing problem on the farms where Glanbia’s milk comes from. Up to two thirds of the farm workers may be members of the estimated 12 million undocumented immigrants living in the US.
Federal authorities have been clamping down hard on illegal immigration, raiding places of work in Oregon, the neighbouring state, and leaving the owners of Idaho’s huge dairy farmers in danger of losing their staff.
Glanbia is lobbying, along with farmers’ organisations and state representatives, on immigration issues.
