By Brad Parks, MMPA Chief Business Officer
MMPA had three major projects taking shape at the same time: Dairy Distillery’s ethanol plant in Constantine, the ultrafiltration expansion in Ovid and the cottage cheese plant in Remus. Each one took a tremendous amount of team work and coordination to bring together in a relatively short amount of time.
Projects like these do not come together because of one person or one department. They come together because a lot of people do their part and keep moving in the same direction. Engineering, operations, quality, maintenance, human resources, IT, sanitation, regulatory and leadership all had a role to play. Contractors, suppliers and project partners did too. At every stage, it took people asking questions, solving problems and thinking ahead about what would need to happen next.
That looked a little different at each location. At Dairy Distillery, teams worked through the construction, installation, commissioning and testing needed to begin producing ethanol from milk permeate. That meant bringing together equipment, lab capabilities, operators, regulatory understanding and startup processes around a product very different from what we are traditionally used to in milk and dairy.
In Ovid, the teamwork showed up in how closely the construction side and the engineering and equipment side had to work together. The building had to be ready to support the equipment, utilities had to be in place, and controls, wiring and programming had to connect everything so the system could run the way it was designed. From silos and piping to refrigeration and control panels, there were a lot of moving parts, and everyone had to stay aligned to keep the project moving forward.
Remus may be the clearest example of just how much coordination these efforts require. In less than a year, that facility underwent a major transformation from a mozzarella cheese plant to a cultured dairy operation. That took demolition, rebuilding, new equipment, updated systems and extensive startup planning. At the same time, teams were hiring employees, setting up the lab, preparing sanitation and quality programs, training people on the process and thinking through how the plant would function every day once it was up and running. It was not just a construction project. It was a full team effort to stand up an entirely new operation.
One of the biggest themes across all three projects was coordination. Weekly meetings kept teams connected and decisions moving. One of the recurring questions throughout the process was, “What are we not thinking about?” That question mattered because projects like these are built on details. It is not just the large equipment or the construction timeline that matters. It is also the day-to-day realities of how people will work in the plant, how systems will connect, how quality will be maintained and how operations will succeed once startup begins.
One of the key things in all of these projects was making decisions for the long term. The goal was to build facilities that work well every day, produce high-quality products and create lasting value for our members.
What gives me confidence in these investments is the demand in the marketplace: Dairy Distillery’s ethanol product has strong demand, ultrafiltered milk has strong demand, and cottage cheese has strong demand. These projects diversify our product mix, diversify our capabilities and expand the value-added use of our members’ milk. They give us more flexibility, more tools in the toolbox and more opportunities to return higher value back to our members. Just as important, they reflect what can be accomplished when MMPA’s team, our contractors and partners, and the support of our board and members all come together behind a shared goal.
This article was originally published in the July/August 2026 issue of the Milk Messenger. Subscribe »