Chobani Breaks Ground on $1.2 Billion Plant in Upstate New York
After announcing a $500 million expansion in Twin Falls, Idaho, just a month ago – which was Chobani’s largest capital investment at the time – the yogurt company broke ground today on a $1.2 billion dairy processing plant in upstate Rome, N.Y.
The 1.4 million-sq.-ft. facility, Chobani’s third U.S. plant, is expected to create more than 1,000 full-time jobs. It’s being built on 150 acres of land that once housed Griffiss Air Force Base, which closed in 1995.
Today's announcement only mentioned dairy products without being specific. Chobani purchased La Colombe coffee products at the end of 2023.
The site is 50 miles north of South Edmeston, N.Y., where Chobani founder Hamdi Ulukaya, a Turkish immigrant, bought a shuttered Kraft yogurt factory in 2005 with a Small Business loan and started making a relatively new cultured product, Greek-style yogurt. "New York is where Chobani's journey began. It was the perfect spot to start Chobani 20 years ago, and it's the perfect place to continue our story,” Ulukaya said.
With initial capacity to manufacture more than 1 billion pounds of products per year, the new plant will house up to 28 production lines designed to process approximately 12 million pounds of milk per day. Once the new plant reaches full capacity, Chobani will purchase an estimated 6 billion pounds per year.
We visited the South Edmeston plant in 2012 when Chobani was our Processor of the Year.
About the Author
Dave Fusaro
Editor in Chief
Dave Fusaro has served as editor in chief of Food Processing magazine since 2003. Dave has 30 years experience in food & beverage industry journalism and has won several national ASBPE writing awards for his Food Processing stories. Dave has been interviewed on CNN, quoted in national newspapers and he authored a 200-page market research report on the milk industry. Formerly an award-winning newspaper reporter who specialized in business writing, he holds a BA in journalism from Marquette University. Prior to joining Food Processing, Dave was Editor-In-Chief of Dairy Foods and was Managing Editor of Prepared Foods.