Pittsburgh nonprofit Food21’s mission is to improve the design, operation and regulation of local and regional food economies, and to work to find funding to achieve it.
A recent feasibility study commissioned by the group examined ways to establish a dairy processing plant, agricultural research center and demonstration farm, potentially in Westmoreland County.
“We’re looking to partner with dairy farmers who are looking to create their own brand, maybe a brand of cheese or another type of value-added product,” said Food21 Value Chain Coordinator Vince Mangini, who is a farmer in Salem Township’s Crabtree neighborhood.
“By creating that sort of product, they can get a premium for their milk, whether it’s developing their own brand or working with a business partner.”
The original feasibility study, conducted by economists from Pittsburgh-based Fourth Economy, looked at developing a mid-sized facility processing Italian-style cheeses.
“That study initially came back and said that to compete in that market, you’d have to buy the lowest-priced milk you could find,” Mangini said. “That wasn’t going to do much for our farmers. But the study also said that making artisanal cheeses, with the farmers participating, could yield some results.”
From there, Food21 worked with the state’s Department of Agriculture on a second study examining not just cheese but extended-shelf-life milk and other “value-added” products such as yogurt, ice cream and butter.
They spoke with dairy farmers, industry experts and regional milk processors. Wayne Frye, who owns Hopeway Dairy in Salem, said a project like that could have a big upside for local producers.
“If they do it right, it could be valuable,” Frye said. “There’s been talk about a cheese plant somewhere out this way for a lot of years, but it hasn’t happened.”
The main advantage for Frye and Hopeway would be cost savings on transportation.
“Our milk all goes to Turner Dairy Farm in Penn Hills, and they supply a lot of schools, colleges and hospitals,” Frye said. “Once school is out, we have some difficulty because they’re hauling loads of milk all the way out to Middlefield, Ohio, to the cheese plant out there.”
Frye said he pays about $150,000 per year to transport his milk where it needs to go, and a nearby processing plant would bring that figure down significantly.
Salem Township, where Frye’s farm is located, is one of the places Food21 is looking to site the project, with potential locations providing quick access to Route 22.
But the tightly regulated milk market might have a say in that decision, according to Mangini.
“Westmoreland County and Indiana County are in two different districts when it comes to how milk is regulated and priced,” he said. “Producers pay less in Indiana County. So we’re not married to Salem, but we do like that there are places that offer easy highway access.”
Jason Rigone, Westmoreland County’s development director and executive director of its Industrial Development Corp., said the proposal is intriguing on multiple levels.
“One is that co-locating different types of value-added agricultural business opportunities and creating a business park with a very unique direction is very interesting,” Rigone said. “Typically, our industrial park system is geared toward appealing to a very wide range of businesses. Having an industrial park set up specifically to support local agriculture is also very interesting.”
Perhaps the most interesting aspect of the project is Food21’s proposal for a large anaerobic digester. The digester generates renewable energy by breaking down organic waste (manure, food scraps, sludge) in oxygen-starved environments, producing methane-rich biogas that powers engines for electricity.
“We’re hoping it can supply the energy needs of the facility, and their waste product can be used to fuel the digester,” Mangini said.
“We also began talking with Carnegie Mellon’s Robotics Institute about having a place where they can road-test some of the agricultural innovations they’re working on.”
Mangini said Food21 has been in talks with the Caterpillar company, which is working with Carnegie Mellon but conducting testing at a proving ground in Arizona.
“That’s a lot of time and travel they could save, doing that work here instead of flying back and forth across the country,” he said.
All of this comes with a hefty price tag, to the tune of about $20 million depending on what particular features the hub might ultimately include.
Food21 officials sat down with Salem Township supervisors recently to brief them on the proposal.
“As far as we were concerned, everything seemed to make sense,” Supervisor Kerry Jobe said. “Farmers could bring their products here and be close to the Route 22 corridor. Without zoning here in the township, they’d have a lot of flexibility with where it could be located.
“Obviously, we wouldn’t want big trucks driving around on our back roads, but there are places that would offer good highway access, and it would fit in Salem pretty well.”
Rigone said county development officials will continue talks with Food21 to see how the county, and specifically Westmoreland County Industrial Development Corp., can play a role.
“With Westmoreland, Armstrong, Indiana and Washington counties all having such a large agricultural component, having access to something like this really could provide some opportunities for growth,” he said.
Mangini said the next step will be pitching the dairy hub to potential tenants and working to gather capital investment.
“We’d like to be able to go to a developer and say that not only do we have a couple educational institutions involved, but also a milk processor and a cheesemaker looking to expand,” he said. “It’s on paper right now, but we’re looking to get things to the next stage.”
Jobe said his only concern was the same thing shared by many across rural Pennsylvania: fewer operating farms in the state with every year that goes by.
“If they’re looking at building this out in, say, the next five years, are the farms producing in this area going to be here in five, 10, 20 years?” Jobe asked. “We have a farming culture here in Salem, and I think we all need to work in tandem to make sure we’re holding onto that agricultural element here. We want food to be grown, processed and sold locally.
“That’s how you keep food security.”