A new yogurt plant opens in Brattleboro today, promising to buy some 100 million pounds of Vermont milk yearly, enough to make 190 million 6-ounce cups of yogurt.
Commonwealth Dairy President Tom Moffitt said the 40,000-square-foot plant, built in partnership with Ehrmann AG, a German company that has been making yogurt for about a century, will mostly produce private-label yogurt for supermarket chains and others. But Commonwealth has also launched its own small regional brand of yogurt under the name Green Mountain Creamery, which will be free of growth hormones and return 5 percent of profits back to the Vermont farmers who supply the milk.
Moffitt, along with two partners, put together the deal with Ehrmann that made the new yogurt factory possible. He said Tuesday that he looked throughout New England and New York state for a location for the factory before picking Brattleboro. Ground for the project broke last year, when Jim Douglas was Vermont's governor.
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