Dannon marks 50th anniversary

MINSTER - From a three-person operation in a small factory, Minster's Dannon Co. plant has grown over the past 50 years into a roughly 450-employee operation that produces products shipped around the country.

During the late 1960s, Paul and Will Meyer operated a small dairy farm, Meyer Dairy, that produced ice cream. At the same time, the Dannon Co., founded as Danone in France, was seeking to open a second yogurt manufacturing facility in the United States.

Dannon officials wanted to rent some space inside the Meyer Dairy factory on East First Street to make yogurt on second shift. In 1968, Dannon purchased the Meyer dairy operation, launching what would become a mainstay in the Minster community.

Six years later, production was moved next door to a 433,000-square-foot facility. The plant has grown into one of largest employers in Minster, said Wes Farno of Dannon public relations.

They work 24-7, 363 days per year producing 230 different yogurt-based products on 15 production lines, said Justin Torel, human relations operations manager.

The employees' hard work generates 3 million to 5 million cups of yogurt products every day and a little more than 1 billion cups per year, making the site the country's largest yogurt production plant, Torel pointed out. This is a vast increase from when the old plant's three workers produced only 13,646 cups annually, he added.

More than 50 trucks deliver milk every day from within a 200-mile radius, that's the equivalent to the production of 50,000 cows per day, Torel noted. The plant can store 6 million gallons of milk, Farno added, pointing out a gallon of milk weighs 6.8 pounds.

Among the hundreds of employees, 30 percent of them have worked for the plant for more than 20 years, Farno said.

"People here are excited about what they do," Farno said. "When they go to a grocery store, they see a product they helped produce on the shelves."

Production operator Amy Tebbe has been at the plant for 25 years. As she performed a quality test on a batch of yogurt, Tebbe said her fellow employees "have become my second family."

"The machines have changed, and we produce a lot more yogurt, but the employee compassion hasn't," she said.

Farno pointed out the company is "the largest public benefit corporation in the United States.

"It fits our corporate philosophy. It's more than profit. It's about the people," Farno said and pointed out Dannon is present in the community in several ways.

" For instance, at the end of Oktoberfest, we hand out yogurt, and we sponsor a Little League tournament in which we also hand out yogurt," Farno noted.

The public is invited to attend a tour of the plant to honor its 50th anniversary from 1-3:30 p.m. Saturday. Attendees will get to sample products from across the Danone family of products as well as yogurt that is produced in Minster, Farno said.