Corona to Become the Big Cheese Among World’s Producers
Corona soon will be the site of the world’s largest cheese manufacturing plant--a $100-million, internationally owned and operated facility that has been designed to produce nearly 110 tons of cheese a day.
The automated factory, the project of a Danish investment group, will be managed by an English firm and is leased by Golden California Cheese Co., a subsidiary of a closely held Irvine manufacturing company.
The plant, scheduled to open Oct. 1, will produce cheddar, colby, and Monterey Jack cheeses, and should begin shipping 40-pound blocks of the dairy food to processed food manufacturers and restaurant supply houses by the end of October, according to Dick Arney, president of Consolidated Pacific Brands Inc., the product’s marketing firm. The cheese also will be sold to supermarket chains that will retail it under their own labels.
The automated Golden California Cheese Co. factory is expected to produce 80 million pounds of cheese a year, about 13% of the more than 600 million pounds of cheese consumed annually by Californians. Currently, about 80% of the cheese eaten in California is produced in Wisconsin and other states. California has a higher per capita cheese consumption than any other state, according to Golden California officials.
An estimated 270,000 gallons of milk a day will be required to feed the 24-hour-a-day cheese-manufacturing operation, said David Wooten, president of Integrated Protein Technology, which owns the cheese company. IPT is a wholly owned subsidiary of closely held Griswold Controls of Irvine, a valve and control manufacturer. The 25-year-old Griswold firm said its sales exceeded $5 million but were less than $10 million last year.
Golden California will lease the $100-million factory from the Danish Investment Foundation, a group of more than 5,700 Danish investors.
A $30-million co-generation plant to be built in the next 18 months is intended to produce more than enough energy to run the cheese factory, with additional power from the plant to be sold to Southern California Edison Co., Wooten said.
Besides manufacturing cheese, the factory also will produce about 2 million gallons of alcohol, 3 million pounds of whey butter, and 5 million pounds of whey protein powder each year. The alcohol will be used for industrial purposes and as a fuel additive, while the whey butter and protein will be used in baby food and other foods, David Griswold, president of Griswold Controls, said.
Griswold said the factory site was chosen because it offered easy access to highways and railroads and was close to the large herds of dairy cattle in neighboring Chino. He said that dairy herds from Kern County to the Mexican border will also supply milk for the plant.
Another advantage of the Corona site was the presence of the “brine line,” a special sewer line used to dispose of salts from dairy wastes that otherwise would affect water quality in Orange County. The salt wastes from cheese production will be added to the effluent in the brine line, which flows into the Orange County Sanitation Districts’ processing plant in Fountain Valley for treatment and disposal in the ocean.
The plant will be managed by Express Foods Ltd., a London-based food producer which operates other cheese plants in Ireland and Great Britain. Its plant in Cork, Ireland, will now become the second-largest cheese factory in the world. Several Irish cheese experts from the Cork facility have moved to the Corona area to take jobs in the Golden California plant. Additional workers will be hired from across the country. The factory is expected to create about 150 jobs.
Wooten said most of the high-technology equipment that workers will use was supplied by Pasilac, a Danish manufacturer.
The 165,000-square-foot plant will be located on 13 acres of a 30-acre property purchased by the foundation from Westminster dentist E. Jan Davidian for about $2.7 million, Wooten said. Davidian bought the property from actor Desi Arnaz, who raised Thoroughbred horses there. The Facts Behind the Cheese
THE SITE:
A 13-acre parcel in Corona, the former site of a horse breeding ranch owned by Desi Arnez and Lucille Ball. The site was chosen because Corona is adjacent to California’s largest concentration of dairy farms.
THE FACILITY:
A fully automated, 165,000-square-foot cheese manufacturing plant, containing 14,000 cubic yards of concrete, 1,000 tons of structural steel, more than 85 miles of piping and more than 500 pumps and 3,000 valves.
ANNUAL
PRODUCTION:
- 80 million pounds of cheese; 13.3% of statewide demand.
- 3 million pounds of butter.
- 6 million pounds of whey protein powder.
- 2 million gallons of 199 proof alcohol.
MISCELLANY:
- The plant cost in excess of $100 million.
- In full operation, it will consume 2.3 million pounds of milk each day, or about 6% of California’s entire milk production.
- Processing equipment came from manufacturers in Denmark, Ireland, New Zealand, Germany and the United States.
- More than 400 workers from 75 building subcontractors were employed in the construction of the facility.
- The plant will employ 150 people.
