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V O L . X X I I I N O. X I X A U G U S T 2 1 , 2 0 1 7 22 M ark Whitney says knew he had his work cut out for him when he walked into the former Grant's Dairy building in Bangor's Hildreth North Business Park last December. e doors were open, the heat and electric were o , and the smell of mold permeated the building, thanks to four years of water leakage from the roof and burst pipes. "Our rst priority is to get the cut, wrap and cheese aging operations moved here from Mars Hill," says Whitney, the former creamery manager at Pineland Farms Creamery, which will consolidate operations in New Gloucester and Mars Hills into a site in Bangor. First Pineland Farms must rehab the ,-square- foot building, a process started in May. It will out t the site with cheese vats and other cheese-making equip- ment from New Gloucester and add a system to create milk blends, all by the end of . Whitney now is president of a new entity created on April called Pineland Farms Dairy Co. Inc., a for-pro t company formed and funded by parent com- pany Libra Foundation, a nonpro t based in Portland. e spin-out was necessitated when New Albany, Ohio-based Bob Evans Farms Inc. (NASDAQ: BOBE) acquired Pineland Farms Potato Co., which shares space with the cheese operation in Mars Hill. Bob Evans didn't want the cheese operation owned by Pineland potato. Libra kept the cheese operation, and then spun it out into the new dairy company three days before it closed the potato company sale to Bob Evans on May . e dairy company has a transition agree- ment until May , , to remove the cheese operation from the Mars Hill plant. During that time, Bob Evans will continue to sell and ship the cheese, Whitney says. Resurrecting an aging facility Part of the cheese consolidation involves Pineland Farms Dairy resurrecting a business that had once been a hallmark of the Bangor facil- ity, which was rst a milk bottler called Grant's Dairy. Garelick Dairy bought Grant's in , and Garelick in turn was bought in by Suiza Foods, which acquired and took on the name Dean Foods Co. (NYSE: DF), which is based in Dallas. Dean made a milk blend at the plant before shuttering it in January . Milk blend, which includes milk, butter and avors tailored to speci c clients, is widely used in frozen foods like the mashed potatoes made by Bob Evans, as well as by brands like Sara Lee, Cheesecake Factory, Dunkin' Donuts, says Jere Michelson, president, COO and CFO of Libra. " e Bangor facility's primary function is not going to be cheese," Michelson says. "It is for milk blend operations. Because the plant is big enough, it a ords us the opportunity to consolidate the cheese business up there. But it's really the milk-blend business that's driving that project." For now, the cheese company has about million in annual revenue and is breaking even. However, Pineland's largest business, beef, is expected to hit million in revenue this year, and the potato business revenue topped million when Bob Evans bought it. "We want the blend business to replicate the potato and beef revenues," says Michelson. " is is a new business for us." Customers could include Bob Evans, which buys its milk blend for the Mars Hill mashed potato Caption, caption Libra Foundation milks its dairy operations New site in Bangor will combine two key business lines • - € G R E AT E R B A N G O R F O C U S Jere Michelson, president, COO and CFO of the Libra Foundation in Portland, says the Bangor operation will consolidate its cheese operations and start a new and potentially large business, milk blends. P H O T O / T I M G R E E N WAY The Bangor facility's primary The Bangor facility's primary The Bangor facility's primary The Bangor facility's primary The Bangor facility's primary The Bangor facility's primary The Bangor facility's primary The Bangor facility's primary The Bangor facility's primary The Bangor facility's primary The Bangor facility's primary The Bangor facility's primary The Bangor facility's primary The Bangor facility's primary function is not going to be cheese. function is not going to be cheese. function is not going to be cheese. function is not going to be cheese. function is not going to be cheese. function is not going to be cheese. function is not going to be cheese. function is not going to be cheese. function is not going to be cheese. function is not going to be cheese. function is not going to be cheese. function is not going to be cheese. function is not going to be cheese. It is for milk-blend operations. — Jere Michelson Libra Foundation

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