Bel Brands to invest $100 million to build cheese plant in South Dakota
1 February 2012Bel Brands USA announced that it will invest $100 million to build Mini Babybel cheese manufacturing facility in Brookings, South Dakota, US.
The new 170,000 square feet manufacturing facility, which will produce Mini Babybel cheese, will be constructed on a 48-acre land parcel along 32nd Avenue near the I-29 corridor. Construction work on the new plant will be carried out in two phases, where phase I will break ground in mid-2012. Phase I will have a production capacity of approximately 22 million pounds or 10,000 metric tons. The project phase will create employment for around 200 people, when it becomes fully operational by 2014. Phase II, which is contingent on anticipated increased market demands, is envisioned to be built in 2016-2017 and will bring another 200 jobs to the area. Bel Brands has appointed Francine Moudry as Project Director to lead the planning and construction of the new Brookings manufacturing facility.
