In January, one of Minnesota’s oldest and best-known dairy companies announced that it would soon shut down its St. Paul processing plant, which had been in operation for more than 80 years. That doesn’t mean you’ll no longer find Old Home yogurt, sour cream, or cottage cheese in your local dairy case. It’s just that the next Old Home product you open may be made and packaged by another company, maybe one based in Iowa or California.
“We are a small, privately held dairy going up against corporate, nationwide conglomerates like Kemps and Land O’Lakes,” says David Holdsworth, Old Home’s vice president of sales and marketing. “We don’t have nearly the resources they do. We have a 100-year-old building. We’re landlocked.” Old Home, having unsuccessfully tried to sell the entire company a couple of years ago, was faced with a dilemma. “With our cost structure, we were unable to make money and invest in the brand,” Holdsworth says.
So Old Home, which has been outsourcing a share of its manufacturing and packaging for years, has chosen to focus on sales and marketing. The company’s distribution arm was closed earlier this year; it is currently in the process of transitioning out of manufacturing altogether.
Minnesota is becoming a state that is no longer friendly to agriculture.
