Dean Foods closes Lincoln plant, plans to relocate production

A Dean Foods dairy plant in Lincoln is closing this fall, and the corporation may use the Le Mars dairy plant to help pick up the slack.

Meadow Gold's downtown Lincoln dairy production plant, which employs 70-100 people, will close in September, according to Dean Foods spokeswoman Marguerite Copel.

The plant packages milk, dairy products, bottled water and juice.

"We'll be moving production to other plants," she said in a phone interview from Dean Foods' Texas headquarters.

Copel cautioned that no verdict has been made yet as to which plants that production will be shifted to. That decision is in process, she said.

"As we look at the whole picture, all the plants in the vicinity could be a possibility," she said.

The 70-100 Meadow Gold production employees in Lincoln will lose their jobs, Copel said. However, the sales and distribution wing there will remain open, she said.

Jobs will not necessarily be added at the plants where production is shifted, she said.

If plants have the capability to add more production without adding employees, that option will be used, Copel said. If more employees are needed, the company will pursue that avenue.

Dean Foods is closing Meadow Gold's Lincoln plant, built in 1908, because of an "overlap in production," Copel said.

"We need to go to those locations that can actually expand if we need to to accept production," she said.

"The Lincoln plant is not as expandable as some of our other locations," she added, referring to its downtown location.

Dean Foods, the nation's largest dairy producer, purchased the Le Mars plant from Wells' Dairy in January 2008.

In a June 2008 story in the Daily Sentinel, plant manager Joe Leedom reported that the Le Mars plant had "a lot of capacity." The plant was Dean Foods' first production venture into Iowa.

Dean Foods, a publicly traded company, sells milk and related products under more than 50 local and regional brands, plus other private labels. In the U.S. Dean Foods has more than 100 manufacturing plants. The corporation employs about 26,000 people.