I’m Michael Levitt, editor of Refrigerated & Frozen Foods, here with a look at some recent cold processing and manufacturing projects. 

JBS USA will invest $135 million to build a sausage production facility in Perry, Iowa. The state-of-the-art plant will create 500 jobs. The company plans to open the facility in late 2026, with capacity for 130 million pounds of sausage a year, processing 500,000 sows annually. 

Daily’s Premium Meats has started expanding its bacon processing plant in St. Joseph, Missouri. The company is investing $95 million in the expansion, which will add 110,000 square feet, including smokehouses, slicing space and bacon bit production. As part of the project, Daily’s will rework existing production areas to improve efficiency. 

Milo’s Tea Company opened its new manufacturing and distribution facility in Spartanburg, South Carolina. The state-of-the-art facility cost $200 million to build and will employ over 200 workers at full capacity. The plant is Milo’s fourth production facility. 

Darigold has started receiving and processing milk at its new production facility in Pasco, Washington. The plant will process up to 8 million pounds of milk per day from over 100 regional farms. Darigold expects to begin producing butter, as well as powdered milk from a milk dryer, by early August, with a second dryer by the year’s end. 

The Tillamook County Creamery Association opened a new ice cream manufacturing facility in Decatur, Illinois; the company’s first owned and operated plant outside of Oregon. The plant will produce 15.5 million gallons of ice cream annually once it reaches full production and allows Tillamook to get its ice cream to the East Coast more easily.