While Wisconsin is known for its cheese, a new factory in northwest Iowa will give the Hawkeye State a big boost in churning out that dairy product. The Green Meadows cheese plant, near the Sioux County town of Hull, started processing milk in early November and held its grand opening last week.
General manager Tim Czmowski says they’ll turn out 80-million pounds of cheese a year. When the plant reaches full capacity, Czmowski says they’ll process two-point-four million pounds of milk per day and from that will make about 240,000 pounds of cheese per day, or about seven semi-truck loads of cheese and four semis of whey powder every production day.
Building the first phase of the factory was an investment of 437-million dollars. Czmowski says they hope to grow even larger. There are plans for a second cheese plant there that would add five-million pounds of milk per day, which would bring a total economic impact of 850-million dollars per year.
Green Meadows has 85 employees and collects milk from dairy farms in Iowa, South Dakota, Minnesota and Nebraska.
