Northwest Iowa — Two northwest Iowa businesses are receiving help from the Iowa Economic Development Authority.
Associated Milk Producers Inc. or AMPI is a dairy marketing cooperative owned by 2,200 Midwest dairy farm families who operate farms in Wisconsin, Minnesota, Iowa, Nebraska, North Dakota and South Dakota. AMPI members own 10 manufacturing plants and market cheese, butter and powdered dairy products to foodservice, retail and food ingredient customers. AMPI is proposing an expansion at its Sanborn cheese and whey facility that includes a building expansion and the addition of equipment that will help increase capacity and efficiency of the existing facility. The project, expected to result in a capital investment of $16 million, was awarded a $37,500 forgivable loan and tax benefits via the High Quality Jobs Program to retain nine jobs at a qualifying wage of $19.44 per hour.
Rock Valley-based Kooima Company is a fully integrated, laser-based fabrication job shop that performs services including laser cutting, CNC machining, CNC press brake work, assembly and logistics. Their proposed modernization project includes the acquisition of fiber lasers, automated storage and retrieval equipment, press brakes, and robotic welding systems over the next three years. The company was awarded tax benefits via the High Quality Jobs Program for the project, which has a capital investment of $12.1 million.
A large-scale industrial parts manufacturer in Farifield and a Des Moines-based custom plastic injection molder also received tax benefits last week. The board also approved innovation funding for four startups.
Download a spreadsheet of today’s awards:
http://www.iowaeconomicdevelopment.com/UserDocs/documents/IEDA/june16awards.pdf
