Time to Paint the Walls

By now, most folks have heard about Chobani’s investment in a new dairy facility located in Allentown, Pennsylvania. Over the next five years, the plant will become capable of processing 3 billion pounds of milk a year, opening a new market for dairy farm families across Pennsylvania and the Mid-Atlantic region. With the plant gearing up to be a local Class I or II market, it also has the potential to enhance blend prices in this region and especially for those farms shipping to the cooperatives supplying the plant.

A few weeks ago, Pennsylvania Agriculture Secretary Russell Redding brought me into a conversation about the Chobani plant coming online to talk about the opportunity this creates to help our dairy farm families grow on-farm milk production across the Commonwealth. Secretary Redding shared how this is a historic investment for dairy in Pennsylvania – both from Chobani and from the Commonwealth – and that he was excited about how well Chobani works with our Pennsylvania model because the company views their partnership with family farms as a critical piece in their success. He also suggested I listen to the “Ted Talk” episode with Chobani’s CEO Hamdi Ulukaya sharing the story of how Chobani got started.

That evening I listened to the story of how, in 2005, Mr. Ulukaya found a depilated yogurt factory for sale in upstate New York. The plant was 85 years old and closing, leaving 55 employees out of a job. Those around him questioned what he saw in the plant that even the national leaders in the business did not see. Truthfully, he wasn’t sure where the path he was on was taking him either. But he started out by hiring four of the original employees from the plant back to start his new business.

In one of their first meetings, one of the employees asked Mr. Ulukaya what they were going to do first. He said, “We are going to paint the walls.” The employees questioned why they were going to do this. But, for Mr. Ulukaya, painting the outside walls of the plants with those employees was a way to get to know each other and to build trust with one another. It helped those employees begin to believe in the vision he had of launching a unique style of yogurt that America has never had called Chobani – and the opportunity that brand had to build the communities around them back up together. It also helped them figure out the path for this new business together.

Fast forward 20 years, Chobani is now the largest brand of Greek-style yogurt in the US and holds around 25 percent of the US yogurt market. The company continues to introduce new products annually, like the protein mixed yogurt drinks that came online earlier this year. Their growth model has allowed them to add new facilities in New York, Idaho, Australia, and now in Pennsylvania. In my mind, Chobani’s investment in Pennsylvania is our opportunity to “paint the walls” for our dairy industry within the Commonwealth.

For years, economists have been pointing to Pennsylvania as a fading dairy industry, with Texas, Michigan and Minnesota all surpassing us in total milk production and growth over the past 15 years. More recently, total milk production in the Commonwealth has been slipping, down 0.5 percent in 2025 with 4,000 fewer cows than a year earlier. Base excess programs put in place in 2019 didn’t help, limiting individual farm families’ opportunities to grow. Higher land costs, increasing competition for that land from other industries, and heightened regulations due to being in the Chesapeake Bay watershed have also challenged dairy’s growth in the Commonwealth.

But the truth is, no location and no industry is without challenges. The trick is to turn those challenges into opportunities. Pennsylvania offers a lot of advantages for dairy, too, like access to ample water supplies, seasonal weather conditions in which cattle thrive, fertile soils for growing crops, and a proximity to 50 percent of consumers in the US and in Canada. We have seaports willing to take our products all over the world and a transportation system that can get them to almost anywhere east of the Mississippi within a day’s drive. Our biggest resource, though, just like Mr. Ulukaya saw in that plant back in 2005, is in our people.

Although having Chobani choose to invest in Pennsylvania is exciting, it didn’t take this announcement to make me believe in the potential of our industry and in our farms here in Pennsylvania. I see it every day when I talk to my sons who want to come back to our farm or to my nieces and nephews who are working their way into that dairy operation. I see it in their energy, their ideas, and their passion for what’s next. I see it when I talk to other dairy producers who are eager to share a new idea they tried that is helping them get five more pounds per cow, that new approach they took to add a few more cows, or a new way they are partnering with their neighbor to grow their business.

What the Chobani announcement provides is evidence that someone else believes in the potential that exists here, too. While the financial incentives and other programs to support on-farm growth are still being developed, both Chobani and the Shapiro Administration have contributed significantly to create the opportunity to grow our milk production here in Pennsylvania. However, it will take the collective energy and ideas from many in the industry – and especially on the farm – to find the best path forward to meet that opportunity.

Let’s start by “painting the walls” and exploring the possibilities. You can do that within your own family business. Start a conversation about where you see your operation in the next 5, 10, or even 20 years. Could you grow in cow numbers? Are there management areas where you could focus to increase milk production per cow or components? What does that next generation look like and what are their ideas? Is there someone in the family who might want to come back if there was room for him or her there? Is there an opportunity to partner with a neighbor?  What modest changes could you make that would improve cow flow, production, and profitability?

The Center just opened our consulting grants earlier this month. Applying for one might be a good start to explore the possibilities and have those conversations. We offer both our Dairy Decisions Consultant (DDC) grant and our Transformation and Transition Team Grants that provide funding to bring folks to your table to identify the best path forward for you. To learn more about those grants, go to www.centerfordairyexcellence.org/grants or call us at 717-346-0849.