Valley Pride LLC, a dairy cooperative made up of 21 dairy farms near Harrisonburg, Virginia, has purchased an ice-cream plant in Hagerstown, Maryland, and plans to begin production this fall, according to an article by Julie Greene in the Herald-Mail.
The company will start production with milk and approximately 10 ice-cream products under the Shenandoah Family Farms label, said Randy Inman, vice president of Valley Pride and Shenandoah Family Farms Cooperative. The co-op expects to add butter to its product line later.
At its peak, Valley Pride could process 65 million pounds of milk a year, officials told the Daily News-Record.
The Daily News-Record article said the purchase was made because the co-op's dairy farm operators want to take their products directly from the farm to the consumer, rather than continuing to sell to other producers.
"Once it went out of our driveway, we had no control over it or anything, and now we're going to take control of our product from the time we make it to the time we sell it to the consumer," said Randy Inman, a dairy farmer who serves as spokesman for the cooperative.
According to the Herald-Mail article, the co-op had been looking at the former Sunshineâs Pride Dairy cheese plant in Winchester, Virginia, but the Hagerstown plant was in a better location.
The co-op will hire approximately 35 full-time workers, starting in October. Products will be shipped to stores within a 250-mile radius, such as New York City and Raleigh, North Carolina. PD
âSummarized by PD staff from cited sources
