Coca-Cola Unit Breaks Ground on $650M Dairy Products Plant
The facility will be the largest of its kind in the Northeast.
The Coca-Cola Co. and its fairlife dairy products subsidiary have broken ground on a 745,000-square-foot production facility near Rochester, N.Y. The plant reportedly will be the largest dairy production facility in the Northeast and represents a total investment of $650 million.
Its location is on Tebor Road in the town of Webster, Monroe County.
Economic development incentives included Empire State Development providing up to $21 million in assistance through the Excelsior Jobs Tax Credit Program, and the New York Power Authority providing nearly 8.5 MW of low-cost power in exchange for the job creation commitments, which total about 250 new jobs.
In addition, the state of New York has pledged $20 million to the town for wastewater treatment infrastructure upgrades, through the New York State Environmental Facilities Corp. That assistance follows a $20 million grant to Monroe County in 2023 for use at the Tebor Road site, allowing the county to upgrade existing electrical infrastructure.
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The facility is expected to be operational by the fourth quarter of 2025. It’s planned to use an estimated 5 million pounds of locally sourced milk per day.
Neither the New York Governor’s office nor fairlife responded to Commercial Property Executive’s request for additional information.
From milk to silicon
Fairlife was founded in 2012, with Coca-Cola as a strategic partner; Coca-Cola acquired fairlife in 2020.
Fairlife makes and markets a line of dairy products using an ultra-filtration process that removes the lactose and much of the sugar and leaves behind more of the protein and calcium. The process also gives fairlife milk a longer shelf life. The product line also includes protein shakes.
At the other end of the technology scale, Micron Technology in October 2022 announced plans to build a giant semiconductor fabrication facility near Syracuse, N.Y. A recent report in Syracuse.com said that Micron has slow-tracked the plant, still waiting to find out from the U.S. Commerce Department how much it will receive from the federal CHIPS and Science Act to help develop the chip fab.
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