A longtime plant manager is buying a recently shuttered Franklin County dairy facility and reopening it this fall, a rare bright spot for a Vermont dairy industry battered by a string of recent production shutdowns.
John Ovitt said he plans to take ownership of the Franklin Foods plant Sept. 1 and will reopen it as Franklin County Cheese, producing some of the same line of products as the previous operation but on a smaller scale.
“I have worked here for 37 years and been through all the changes and did not want to see it close,” Ovitt told VTDigger.
While the workforce of the plant will decrease once ownership is transferred, starting at around 20 workers from the plant’s roughly 100 workers, the reopening is a promising sign, one state official said. At least three dairy production plants have closed in recent months.
“It’s a ray of hope,” Anson Tebbetts, Vermont’s secretary of agriculture, food and markets, said.
After purchasing the plant in 2017, Germany-based food company Hochland announced earlier this month that it would shut down their facility in Vermont in August. Another major Franklin County manufacturing plant, Perrigo, also said in May it would shut down its infant formula facility, laying off 162 employees.
The Franklin Foods closure not only hit workers in the region but also represented struggles for the dairy industry amid other shutterings. Dairy Farmers of America announced last week that it would effectively close its St. Albans milk processing plant in August and dairy manufacturer HP Hood’s plant in Barre closed in April.
“There’s anxiety, but I also think there’s tremendous energy from everyone I’ve talked about to map out a path forward to try to preserve what we currently have, which I think is very important,” Tebbetts said, describing the efforts to rebuild the industry after recent hits.
Since the announcement that Franklin Foods would close, Vermont’s Agency of Agriculture and Agency of Commerce and Community Development have been working to assess the fallout and figure out a solution, Tebbetts said. Ovitt stepped forward, and the agencies, along with the Vermont Sustainable Jobs Fund, assisted, Tebbetts said.
The new Franklin County dairy facility will produce plant-based cream cheese, as well as Baker’s Cheese, which the former plant was known for. It will also wash trailers, filling a need in the area and helping with the new operation’s income before it plans to expand into packaging foods made elsewhere, Ovitt said.
“We’re trying to resurrect this and build back, and I think — maybe I’m being too optimistic — but I think there’s a place for small-to-medium companies, like I’m going to have,” Ovitt said.
In the meantime, as the plant transitions ownership, both Ovitt and the previous owner are working to support the workers affected. Over the last three Fridays, the Vermont Department of Labor has hosted workshops for the plant’s soon-to-be laid off workers to help with resume writing and the job search, according to Ovitt.
For Kevin Kouri, chair of the Vermont Dairy Producers Alliance, the recent dairy production closures signal that partnerships between the public and private sector are needed. He encouraged more conversation between local officials and producers if a facility needs support.
Local elected officials will be meeting dairy producers next week to discuss long-term ideas, Kouri and Tebbetts said.
“We all need to communicate, we all need to talk and we all need to figure out a strategy going forward to improve not only the dairy economy but the rural economy of Vermont,” Tebbetts said about the upcoming meeting.
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This story was originally published by VTDigger and distributed through a partnership with The Associated Press.
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