DETROIT, Mich. — Dried whole milk producer VernDale Products Inc. celebrated the opening of its Weaver Street plant last month with a ribbon cutting ceremony and plant tour. 

The new plant will nearly double the whole milk powder production capacity of the company and bring 10-15 new jobs to the city of Detroit. The plant will operate around the clock, seven days per week to process more than 400,000 pounds of milk per day into about 50,000 pounds of roller-dried whole milk powder.

“This plant has been in the making for several years. It is amazing to see how the planning and hard work of so many people have come together to make this dream come true,” Dale Johnson, president and part owner of the company, said in a statement. “I want to take time to personally thank those who have contributed to the successful completion of this project in Detroit.”

Michigan Dept. of Agriculture and Rural Development Director Jamie Clover Adams said the expansion project has “so many positives” for the city of Detroit and shows how agri-food businesses can benefit the economy as a whole. In the announcement, Clover Adams noted the Weaver Street facility had been abandoned but that now, through public and private partnership, it’s creating jobs and investment in Detroit. 

Michigan Economic Development Corp. (MEDC) CEO and President Michael Finney also noted that VernDale has found a way to continue expanding and succeeding.

With “more than 50 years in Detroit, and Michigan, it’s a company we’re proud to call one of our own.”

VernDale Products Chief Operating Officer Clay Galarneau said the MEDC helped the company get access to loan money for the new plant. The company has a rich history in Detroit. LaVerne and Marlene Johnson founded it in 1958. Prior to starting the dry milk powder plant, Vern was a manager of a creamery in Chicago. Marlene was living at home over her father’s creamery in Chicago, the same one that Vern was managing.

Verne and Marlene married and then used their savings to move to Detroit and started VernDale Products Inc. The two were equal partners, at a time well before women’s liberation. The plant began with one dryer. In time, the plant grew. Later, in the 1970s, the company was forced to move off its original address on the Detroit riverfront. Not sure whether to move or shut down the plant, Vern and Marlene, along with their son Dale, decided to relocate at the site of the old Twin Pines dairy plant on Lyndon Street in Detroit. 

The large and empty building soon became full as VernDale expanded to include four dryers and a crew of busy people working to continue VernDale’s operation.

Today the company likes the older roller-dried technology.

“It’s an older technology that’s largely gone out of use in the United States, but it’s something that’s been really latched onto by the chocolate industry,” Galarneau said. “It gives a different consistency, a different mouth feel. Chocolatiers have really recognized how this makes for a different kind of chocolate.”

Galarneau said the new Weaver Street plant is now open and is doing some trial runs. He added that the milk that’s being used is mostly from within Michigan and is always local and fresh from area dairy farms.