Sanborn, Iowa — Employees at AMPI’s Sanborn, Iowa, plant will soon be making more cheese.
The cheese and whey manufacturing plant is in the midst of a multi-million-dollar construction project that will more than double its processing capacity. Eight, state-of-the-art cheese vats will be installed, expanding daily processing capacity to 3 million pounds of milk.
AMPI is a cooperative of dairy farmers, and coop board members say that increased demand for AMPI’s award-winning cheese, along with growing milk production on member farms, is the basis for this cooperative investment. Construction is underway to expand the facility to accommodate the new cheese vats. AMPI cheesemakers will begin producing cheese in the new vats by the end of 2017.
The cheesemakers produce blocks of cheese weighing nearly 700 pounds — known in the industry as 640s — which are then sold to customers and packaged as cubes, slices, shreds or snack sticks.
Marshall Reece, AMPI vice president of sales and marketing says that AMPI’s cheese performs well across all these applications. He says that the consistency of their cheese gives customers more flexibility, and they love it. He says they call it their ‘go-to’ cheese.”
Cooperative officials say that right now, the AMPI plant in Sanborn is the smallest cheese plant in their network. But it’s actually in the largest milk-procurement area.
The plant started as the O’Brien County Co-Op Creamery in 1937. AMPI became involved in 1978.
Cooperative officials say the expansion will actually give their dairy farmers the opportunity to expand their herds.
They tell us that while the plant will double their production, increased automation will mean that they won’t be hiring any more employees. They say current employees whose jobs will be automated will be moved to areas where manual labor is still needed. The plant employs about 102 people.
