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Chinese Dairy Firm Has Old Lindsay Olive Plant In Escrow

Screen Shot 2014-04-11 at 10.46.55 AM300 Jobs Could Be Coming To Lindsay

A Chinese dairy group has the former Lindsay Olive plant in Lindsay in escrow. The vacant 35 acre plant has been for sale for $3.5 million. The group is represented by Visalia realtor Mike Schuil who confirms that the unnamed company has a Tulare County facility under contract.

Lindsay Community Development Director Bill Zigler acknowledges a company is talking to the city about plans to occupy the sprawling plant but was asked not to mention names.

Lindsay City Council member Pam Kimball says the council is ”very encouraged that the former Lindsay Olive is in escrow and the company has indicated that would hire 300 people.”

Kimball confirms the dairy and Chinese connection.”They were in town today meet with our city manager. The company engineers are coming next week to visit the plant.”

Kimball says the group’s representative has told the city they hope to close escrow in August.

Other sources say the Chinese group is believed to be interested in processing Tulare County milk to be shipped back to China, perhaps in aseptic containers not needing refrigeration.

A Chinese company has been touring existing buildings in Tulare County to set up a manufacturing facility and a number of local realtors have showed the group’s representatives various buildings including some in Visalia.

The former Lindsay Olive plant was last occupied by Tulare Frozen Foods who closed their doors several years ago.The facility was a USDA approved food plant that includes a 90,000 sf building and 7 others along with rail access.

Kimball who has been on the city council for some 12 years remembers when “just about half the town used to work at Lindsay Olive” before it closed in1992. “We’re still trying to recover from that” she adds.

With Tulare County being the number one milk producing county in the US – it is not surprising a Chinese company might be interested in tapping our milk to ship home where supplies are scarce and demand is high.US dairy exports  were up 19% in January and China is  now importing double what it did a year ago.

Demand is China has been rising faster than that country’s dairy farmers can supply.On top of that Chinese consumers continue to not trust their own dairy industry that supplied tainted infant formula a few years ago. To make matter worse  the China’s dairy industry is undergoing a shrinking with up 40 per cent of farmers leaving the industry in the last two years, according to one estimate.The efforts to limit smaller dairy farms stemmed in part from the 2008 melamine scandal that killed at least six babies and sickened thousands more says a Chinese press report.
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To date California farmers are selling milk to China in the form of powdered product trucked to the Port of Oakland and then loaded onto ships to China in bags with the American flag on it, a symbol of quality.

Our highly rated food safety record and regulations appears to be a badge of trust. Sending US-made product by ship works out well with Asian-bound ships full of Chinese exports to the US often returning to Asia empty.

China is today the world’s top dairy importer valued at $40 billion last year, 5X what it was 10 years ago.

A slew of recent affiliations,joint ventures and mergers by Chinese , Australian,New Zealand and European dairy product makers look to fill demand there. WhiteWave Foods Co.,a US food maker, recently announced such a merger.

All that demand has helped boost milk prices as well as stimulate plans to grow the diary industry in Tulare County recently after some very tough years. A new cheese plant, CaliCheese in Tulare plans to export products and California Dairies in Visalia is planning an expansion to make specialty powder to meet the surging demand in China for infant formula. Last week a local dairy group bought acreage in the Visalia Industrial Park for a new cheese plant.

On the price front – California dairymen who were crying in their milk a year ago are enjoying good times for change.

“I just got my largest milk check ever” says Tom Barcellos, Porterville dairyman and president of Western United Dairymen.

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