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Lactalis USA Spending $75 Million on Plants in Upstate New York

July 3, 2025

A facility in Walton makes Breakstone cottage cheese and sour cream; one in Buffalo produces mozzarella, provolone and ricotta.

Dave Fusaro

Lactalis USA will invest more than $75 million to upgrade cheese- and cultured products-making facilities in both Walton and Buffalo, N.Y. The projects include the purchase of new equipment and upgrades that will add 50 jobs to what’s already more than 800 full time positions at the two plants.

The Walton plant makes Breakstone products. It will undergo a $15 million modernization, focusing on automating and expanding the cottage cheese and sour cream production lines. Currently, the facility has limited capacity, while market demand for high-protein foods is increasing.

The Buffalo plant produces Galbani ricotta, mozzarella and provolone cheeses, along with whey powder that is distributed across the U.S. and abroad. The $60 million expansion includes the installation of six 50,000-lb. vats, an advanced cheese belt, separators, silos and a robotic palletizer.

Building remodeling in Buffalo will include relocating the cheese lab to maintain production, increasing mozzarella and provolone production by 37 million lbs. annually and increasing ricotta production. With this expansion project, Lactalis USA will have invested a total of $123 million in its Buffalo facilities from 2020 through the end of 2027.

Most of the more than 800 million lbs. of raw milk used annually comes from 236 local dairy farmers.

The upgrades at both plants will be partially funded with grants or tax credits from State of New York economic development funds.

Elsewhere, Lactalis USA just this week completed its purchase of General Mills' U.S. yogurt business, which includes Yoplait.

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.