Nampa cheese factory begins large expansion

Canyon County's sagging employment rate is getting a boost as Sorrento Lactalis officially broke ground Friday on an expansion of its whey drying operations in Nampa.

The facility, which was approved by the Canyon County Planning and Zoning Commission in mid-March, will add about 250 jobs during the 14-month construction of the new facility and about 50 new, full-time jobs with benefits at the plant upon completion.

Canyon County's unemployment rate was 9.5 percent in April, according to the Idaho Labor Department. Nampa's rate stood at 10.1 percent, or about 3,600 people out of work.

The liquid left after the production of cheese contains valuable components, and the facility expansion will dry this leftover liquid into a powdered product that can be sold, creating another product for the marketplace.

"This is a very exciting day for this community and our company," said Jean Claude Bruneau, vice president of manufacturing, as he and a host of elected officials ceremoniously broke ground at the construction site adjacent to the company's operations at Franklin and Star roads.

A bigger market for local dairies has ripple effects into the entire economy, said Brent Olmstead, executive director of Milk Producers of Idaho.

"Over 80 percent of the dollars coming to a dairy are spent in the local community," he said. "For every job at a dairy 2.4 are created out in the work place."

Those jobs touch every sector of the economy, Olmstead said.

"A Jerome car dealer tells me he has two more salesmen, a mechanic and half a secretary, because of the local dairy industry," he said.

Sorrento Lactalis is a U.S. company in the North American division of Groupe Lactalis, one of the world's largest dairy corporations. The Nampa plant is the largest of its 140 plants around the world and employs more than 500 people.

Sorrento Lactalis' parent company purchased the Swiss Village cheese-manufacturing plant in Nampa from the J.R. Simplot Company in 1999. Since that time it has invested more than $100 million in the plant and has doubled employment. The Nampa plant has an annual payroll of more than $25 million, according to a release from Gallatin Public Affairs.

Sorrento spends $250 million for products in the local economy annually. In 2009, the Nampa plant expects to purchase more than 1 billion pounds of milk that will be processed into various types of cheeses, predominantly mozzarella and provolone. About 65 percent of the milk purchased for the Nampa plant is produced by farmers within 45 miles of the plant. Additional milk is purchased from local and regional milk cooperatives, a news release said.

By: Brad Talbutt - BTALBUTT@IDAHOSTATESMAN.COM
PUBLISHED: 05/30/09
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