Clint Fall of the First District Association dairy cooperative likes to brag that if someone orders a McDonald’s cheeseburger in the U.S., the cheese likely includes cheddar from the cooperative’s Litchfield plant.
About 144 million pounds of cheese, much of it half-ton blocks of cheddar and monterey jack, are shipped out of Litchfield annually. Fall, the cooperative’s president and chief executive officer, and the dairy farmers on his board would like that number to be even higher.
First District this spring broke ground on a $32 million expansion that will add 50,000 square feet of space and updated equipment to the 198,000-square-foot headquarters and manufacturing complex that the cooperative owns on several blocks on the west side of Litchfield.
The expansion, part of $53.5 million worth of construction work at the cooperative since 2008, is a sign that agriculture remains a bright spot in Minnesota’s economy in the aftermath of the Great Recession.
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