Eighty people will lose their jobs later this summer when Dairy Farmers of America shutters its St. Albans processing plant and adjoining creamery and supply store.
DFA, the nation’s largest dairy co-op, said it would “idle” the plant, apparently leaving open the possibility of reopening it at some point. But the Kansas-based cooperative said the difficult decision “reflects broader operational and network changes needed to best serve our farmer-owners and customers.”
The store and plant will go dark on August 17.
In an interview on Wednesday, Vermont Agriculture Secretary Anson Tebbetts said the decision came as a surprise to many in Vermont’s dairy industry. The plant has been the centerpiece of Franklin County’s agricultural community for generations.
“We’re all very concerned about the employees that are impacted by this,” Tebbetts said. “I know from talking with [the] Commerce and Labor [departments], we are hoping to find them new opportunities.”
Milk currently received at the St. Albans plant will be processed within DFA’s network at facilities across New York, Massachusetts and Maine.
The decision comes about seven years after the St. Albans Cooperative Creamery voted by a 99-9 margin to merge with DFA. As part of the deal, the co-op, store, and trucking company became fully owned subsidiaries of the national organization. St. Albans had started a marketing partnership with DFA in 2003, but as membership in the local co-op shrank, the two sides began to discuss combining forces.
Franklin County dairy farmers told Seven Days in 2019 that the merger was the only way local farmers would be able to compete amid low milk prices, deteriorating finances, and increasing regulation and consolidation in the industry. That year, DFA pledged to invest $30 million in the St. Albans processing plant, with an additional $5 million going towards its trucking company.
Tebbetts believes those same market pressures on the dairy industry motivated DFA to idle its St. Albans facility. Wednesday’s decision is yet another example of the changes occurring in the dairy industry over the past decade, Tebbetts said.
“Every industry is consolidating, and dairy is not immune from those trends,” he said.
Nonetheless, Tebbetts highlighted the importance of having dairy processing infrastructure in Vermont, and he’s hopeful that DFA’s decision to “idle” the plant rather than permanently shutter it, along with the millions of dollars the company invested into the facility, will see operations someday return.
“It takes one more option off the table for processing milk in the state,” he said.