REED CITY — Yoplait, the third largest employer in Reed City has new ownership, after being bought by Lactalis, a world leader in the dairy industry.
Reed City mayor Roger Meinert said Yoplait employs about 500 people in a city with a population of around 2000, within the city limits.
“A lot of them live within the city of Reed city. So, they own homes here and pay property taxes. But even if they’re not here inside the city, they’re doing business here. They’re supporting our grocery stores, they’re supporting our gas stations. They’re supporting our local restaurants,” said Meinart.
Meinart said the impact isn’t felt just in the Reed City area.
“They source almost, million pounds of milk a day. And that all comes from local dairy farmers within a 60-to-70-mile radius. The vast majority of the sugar that they use comes from suppliers in the thumb area of Michigan. And then they also source fruits from local farmers. Michigan has a great blueberry farming community, cherry farming as well as apples,” said Meinart.
He said Lactalis’ track record of past acquisitions alleviated concerns the plant would be sold to a company looking to turn a quick buck.
“They have a history of buying other product lines throughout the U.S., and those product lines have stayed local. And they continue to enhance and update those facilities as well,” said Meinart.
Lactalis’ CEO of the USA yogurt division, Bill Cassidy said they wanted to grow their dairy division in the US and advance their growth in the yogurt market.
He said the Reed City plant is part of two manufacturing facilities they are acquiring, the other plant being in Tennessee.
With Reed City’s history, it was an easy choice.
“They were the foundation of starting to produce yogurt for General Mills. And they’ve done a great job producing products through the years,” said Cassidy.
He said there could be more jobs coming to Reed City in the future.
“If we bring more volume, that means more workers. We may need to run a line not three days, but seven days to do so, we will need more employees or more hours per employee,” said Cassidy.
Cassidy said they are committed to the dairy industry and yogurt, unlike Yoplait’s previous owner’s General Mills.
“It was one of the reasons why they were selling these brands so that they can focus on their core. The good news for us, yogurt is number one, dairy is number one,” said Cassidy.