Food Plant of the Year
Food Engineering honors the most innovative new food or beverage plant built in North America each year. The automation strategy, processing and packaging line design, and supply chain management plan of each plant project submitted are reviewed.
This year’s Plant of the Year award goes to Valley Milk LLC for its new milk powder processing plant in Turlock, Calif. The 142,000-sq.-ft. facility is the culmination of a plan the dairy’s founding families had to be a fully vertically integrated operation instead of just milk producers. The facility, built by Shambaugh & Son LP, an EMCOR Company, can currently process up to 2.5 million pounds of liquid milk every day. This award recognizes the plant’s automation and operations, as well as its innovative approach to meeting California’s energy, water and seismic regulations.