This article was updated July 18 with information about auctioning the yogurt-making equipment.
PepsiCo had grand plans to conquer the U.S. yogurt market in 2013. It partnered with the German dairy Muller to manufacture Muller-Quaker yogurt in upstate New York. That joint venture quickly folded and Dairy Farmers of America purchased the facility in 2015. Today, HP Hood bought the 363,000-square-foot facility and promised to invest more than $200 million and create 230 jobs over the next five year.
New York Governor Andrew M. Cuomo made the announcement today. The plant is located in the Genesee Valley Agri-Business Park in Batavia.Hood, headquartered in Lynnfield, Mass., plans to repurpose the plant to produce extended-shelf-life beverages. It will construct a 100,000-square-foot refrigerated warehouse this summer and have it online by the second quarter of 201
Harry Davis & Co. will auction production equipment on Sept. 13. The equipment was used for only 18 months of production time, according to Leonard Davis, president and senior appraiser for the company.
Some of the featured equipment, valued at $200 million, includes:
• Aseptic S/S Silos & Tanks
• Pasteurization, Homogenization & Culture Injection
• Finnah Horizontal Form, Fill & Seal Packaging Lines
• Hamba/Oystar A+F Filling Line
• Kasag Fruit Batch Cooking Plant.
Fruit processing equipment also is available, including a fruit receiving, sorting and cutting system, Davis said. Additional general plant and spare parts also are available. Interested parties can access the auction online at http://bit.ly/MullerHDC. The auction will be held at 9:30 a.m. ET Sept. 13.
Hood has four other manufacturing locations in the State of New York which manufacture fluid and cultured dairy products such as milk, cream, cottage cheese and sour cream. They are located in Vernon, Oneida, Arkport and Lafargeville.
According to an announcement from Cuomo’s office, the Empire State Development will provide up to $5 million in performance-based Excelsior Jobs Program tax credits and a $2 million capital grant from the Upstate Revitalization Initiative. The Genesee County Economic Development Center board will also amend the current PILOT, which will provide Hood with more than $7 million in tax abatements over 10 years, with an anticipated total economic benefit to the region of more than $330 million.
Read our 2014 report "PepsiCo’s million-dollar bet on yogurt."
HP Hood was Dairy Foods Processor of the Year in 2013.
