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Dairy Co-op Offers To Buy Corner of Hwy 99 & Caldwell For New Plant / Rail Shipping Center

June 2,2014
Visalia-based California Dairies Inc (CDI) has offered to buy 150 acres from the City of Visalia at the northwest corner of Caldwell Ave and Hwy 99. The matter was heard in a closed door session this week.

The dairy cooperative that has a 55 acre milk plant already on Plaza Drive has been on the prowl for a second plant site in Visalia to manufacture milk specialty powders for export including those used in infant formulas.

While that is one possible use, there are others says Dave Bush, CDI ‘s ‎Senior VP of Operations. ”This location could have multiple uses for us.” Bush adds that “we are a major exporter these days. We are shipping so many milk powder containers to the Port of LA that we could use a rail shipping facility. We use to send 5 container loads of powder but now we ship 60” over the same interval.

Bush says that CDI needs “to get ahead of the game“ since multiple approvals, permits and EIRs for new development take so long.”

Screen Shot 2014-05-31 at 7.58.39 AMThe Caldwell site is part of a 900-plus acre parcel the city has owned for years surrounding their wastewater treatment plant, now being expanded. Much of the ag land surrounding the WWTP is planted to nuts that helps provide income to the city.

But the corner acreage is open field land.The location enjoys direct access to the Union Pacific railroad that runs along the westside of Hwy 99 through this part of the county.  California Dairies has a similar situated milk processing plant a few miles south near Tipton on the westside of 99, also near an interchange.Unlike that plant that has to pond their waste water on ag land – the new Visalia site would offer direct access to the city treatment plant .

“This location (on Caldwell/99) has rail access, electric power and a treatment plant nearby” adds Bush.

The city council will have to make a judgment whether to industrialize this farmland but it is hard to argue that this use is not ag-related. Milk is the number one agricultural product in the county. California Dairies is one of the largest property owners in the city with its current plant site valued somewhere around $300 million and undergoing an expansion as we speak with a new $4.2 million,130 ft evaporator. The current plant is some 260,000sf.

Preserved To Travel

While fluid sales of milk have been declining – sales of milk in different forms but with still all the nutritional benefits,particularly protein, is booming.This milk is “preserved to travel” says CDI’s president Andrei Mikhalevsky, expecting the number of global consumers to grow to 9 billion by 2050. ”People now eat milk rather than drink milk” he says.

CDI’s milk powder business is the largest in the US. Annually California Dairies, Inc. manufactures 786 million pounds (357,000 metric tons) of milk powder or 40 percent of the milk powder produced in the United States.

With 12 dryers and evaporators, California Dairies, Inc. operates state-of-the art processing plants capable of producing a wide variety of powdered milk products including:
High, medium and low-heat nonfat dry milk and skim milk powder
Powder blends
Buttermilk powder
In addition, California Dairies, Inc. is able to meet a variety of export product specifications and individual country requirements. California Dairies, Inc. exports 47 percent of its powder production.
The land in question is in the city limits even though land on the south east side of the freeway remains in the county. CDI would need a host of permit approvals including assuring no conflict with the airport operation to the east.

New Industrial Park?

If the use is approved – the city would likely embrace this area west of Hwy 99 near the WWT plant as a new industrial park, in need of the proper infrastructure to grow more.The benefits could be large for Visalia as the city would attract more food-related companies that turn the county’s crops into high value products.Unlike the current  industrial park,this location has direct access to the main UP rail and 99 truck corridors and the WWT plant. Like any good industrial park, it has few residential neighbors it might impact.

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