Maryland & Virginia Milk Producers acquire HP Hood facility in Philadelphia

There’s a shakeup among milk producers in the Pennsylvania region. 

Gov. Josh Shapiro and Agriculture Secretary Russell Redding joined leaders from the Maryland & Virginia Milk Producers Cooperative Association Tuesday morning to announce the purchase of the HP Hood facility in Northeast Philadelphia. 

“It’s a great sign for the strength of our dairy industry, and really for our economy as a whole,” Shapiro said Tuesday. 

Shapiro noted that the facility will keep 178 jobs in the community and plans to expand its processing capacity from about 12 million gallons a year to about 25 million gallons a year by 2026. 

“The commonwealth made an aggressive play here, putting together an incentive package totaling $10 million in grants and loans to be able to not just keep this plant open and keep the jobs here but to expand the capacity – nearly double the capacity.”

The Maryland & Virginia Milk Producers Cooperative, known as MDVA, is a farmer-owned cooperative of dairy farmers that owns processing plants, with members in 11 states. MDVA’s Maola Local Dairies completed the transaction and will operate HP Hood’s extended shelf-life ultra-high temperature dairy processing factory with the help of $7.25 million coming through a Pennsylvania Industrial Development Authority loan, $2.5 million coming in Redevelopment Assistance Capital Program funding and a $300,000 workforce development grant to train workers.

Jay Bryant, CEO of MDVA, said that given the number of Pennsylvania-based farms now in membership, it might be time for the cooperative to change its name. 

“(It’s) been suggested to me that we need to change that name and add Pennsylvania into it because Pennsylvania is our largest state as far as members,” Bryant said. “We have plants in North Carolina, Virginia and Maryland, and so to finally have a plant in Pennsylvania is so exciting.”

The Northeast Philadelphia facility produces coffee creamer, half-and-half and other extended-shelf-life dairy products. State Rep. Martina White, a Republican who represents the area, said in a statement that she’s grateful for the investment. 

“These resources not only support our hardworking dairy farmers across the commonwealth, but also help secure the future of a facility that employs many of our friends and neighbors in northeast Philadelphia,” White said in a statement. 

Shapiro also took the opportunity to tout his budget proposal, which includes a $10.3 million investment in “agriculture innovation to help support and attract new agricultural businesses.”

Agriculture “is integral to our entire economic development strategy in urban centers and on our farmlands,” Shapiro added. “We need to invest across the board if we’re going to be competitive.”