Hilmar Cheese expands production facility in Texas

Hilmar Cheese Co. announced Wednesday that it is increasing production at its plant in Dalhart, Texas. It processes cheese into 40- and 640-pound blocks and will add 500-pound barrel production.

“We are expanding to meet our customers’ growing demand for our products,” said Hilmar Cheese Chief Operating Officer David Ahlem in a news release. “Both global and domestic cheese consumption continues to increase.”

Hilmar Cheese built the Texas facility in 2005 and began processing cheese there in 2007.

In 2010, the facility almost doubled capacity, according to the news release. This included additional milk storage, four additional milk receiving bays and expansion to the cheese production line. Equipment also was added on the whey processing side.

The new expansion will increase production capacity by 20 percent when completed in 2016.

“Texas continues to be a great place to invest in cheese processing, with plenty of available milk and a very stable regulated milk pricing environment,” Ahlem said in the release.

Hilmar Cheese spokeswoman Denise Skidmore said Wednesday afternoon that the Texas expansion will result in hiring there, but she did not have a figure on the expected number of jobs.

The company also is building a powdered milk plant in Turlock, expected to be in operation late this year.

Hilmar Cheese was founded by 11 dairy farming families in 1984 on Lander Avenue, now the world’s largest cheese plant. Its 930 employees, along with 400 in Dalhart, turn out about 2 million pounds of cheese a day under various labels. The company also sells the byproducts, whey protein and lactose, as food ingredients around the world.

In April 2014, Hilmar Cheese dedicated its new headquarters, including a lab where workers dream up more uses for dairy products. The building will help the company take advantage of a growing global market for this food and its byproducts, speakers said at the time.

Hilmar Cheese mainly produces American varieties such as cheddar, Monterey jack and colby, sold to other companies for marketing under several labels.

This story was originally published June 24, 2015 at 12:46 PM with the headline "Hilmar Cheese expands production facility in Texas."