On Aug. 8, Agropur, Canada’s largest dairy cooperative, announced that it had completed the transaction to acquire the dairy processing assets of Davisco Foods International, a U.S.-based cheese and dairy ingredients company.

This transaction doubles Agropur’s U.S. processing operations and will increase its global milk intake by 50 percent. It will also strengthen its position in the North American and international dairy industries.

“This transaction, combined with the most recent ones in Canada, will increase our sales to over CDN $5.8 billion (U.S. $5.4 billion) on an annualized basis, and we should reach 5.3 billion liters (12.1 billion pounds) of milk processed each year in 41 plants across North America,” said Serge Riendeau, president of Agropur.

Headquartered in Le Sueur, Minnesota, Davisco processes 3.8 billion pounds of milk annually and has 900 employees.

The acquisition includes three Davisco cheese-processing factories in Le Sueur, Jerome (Idaho) and Lake Norden (South Dakota). It also includes an ingredients plant in Nicollet (Minnesota), a Friendly Confines Cheese Shoppe in Le Sueur, as well as sales offices in Minnesota, Shanghai, Singapore and Switzerland, and distribution centers in the Netherlands and China. PD

—From Agropur news release