Bentonville, Ark.-based Walmart said it plans to establish a milk processing plant in Fort Wayne, Ind., which will create more than 200 good-paying jobs ranging from milk processing to transportation by the end of 2017. With construction anticipated to begin this summer, Walmart will build a more than 250,000-square-foot milk processing plant, which is expected to be one of the largest in the industry. The highly-efficient plant will leverage the latest technologies to produce Great Value and Member’s Mark white and chocolate milk for more than 600 Walmart stores and Sam’s Club locations in Indiana, Illinois, Michigan, Ohio and Northern Kentucky. Walmart estimates that milk processing will begin in the summer of 2017.
“By operating our own plant and working directly with the dairy supply chain in the Midwest, we’ll further reduce operating costs and pass those savings on to our customers so that they can save money,” said Tony Airoso, senior vice president of sourcing strategy for Walmart U.S. “This facility is an example of how we are always finding efficiencies within the supply chain to deliver everyday low prices and high quality groceries.”
With more than 1,200 Hoosier dairies, Indiana produced more than 4 billion pounds of milk last year — 348 million pounds in December alone — but approximately 4 million pounds are exported every day.
Indiana is home to 21 dairy processing plants and 14 farmstead operations, helping the Hoosier state rank No. 14 in the nation in milk production and No. 2 in ice cream production. On average, Indiana has roughly 184,000 milk cows which can produce 61 pounds of milk per day, accounting for nearly 2 percent of total U.S. milk production, the retailer said.