State awards $121,000 in dairy grants
UW Provision Co. of Middleton is one of the entities sharing in $121,000 in Value Added Dairy Initiative Dairy (VADI) processor grants announced Tuesday by Gov. Jim Doyle.
The VADI grant program offers funding to individuals or groups, businesses and organizations to help fund projects geared at innovation, market development and modernization of dairy processing. Since its start-up in April 2004, the program has administered $3.18 million in grants to 315 producers, processors and local dairy groups.
UW Provision received $16,750 for a collaborative effort with the non-profit REAP (Research, Education, Action and Policy) Food Group to develop a local food distribution network. This part of their project will allow local dairy manufacturers to use the network to distribute their products with the help of a merchandiser to stock and deliver.
The other grants were:
Grassland Dairy Products Inc., Greenwood, $10,750 for development of a specialty butter that will take the company to a new market segment. The goal is to grow to a national brand with potential to expand to the international marketplace.
Hidden Springs Creamery, Westby, $12,500 as it unveils a new expanded line of specialty cheese and milk, and modernize marketing techniques, including improving its Internet presence, to reach the target market.
LaClare Farm, Chilton, $15,000 for its dairy goat operation working with a local farmstead dairy to create a high-end artisan aged raw milk cheese exclusively from LaClare Farm goat milk.
Meister Cheese Co. LLC, Muscoda, $20,000 for the modernization of a plant to compete with the technology standards of industry to guarantee consistency and make operations easier.
Nordic Creamery, Westby, $12,500 to expand its marketing efforts to include direct-to-consumer in-store demonstrations to improve market demand.
Snack Patrol LLC, Glendale, $9,500 for its work with a farmstead dairy to produce an innovative product, cheese jerky, that combines farmstead cheese with quality jerky.
Winona Foods, Green Bay, $9,500 to improve market placement of its Alejandro Cheese Products, which use a patented inverted squeeze bottle, focusing on competing in the ethnic marketplace nationwide.
Wisconsin Specialty Protein LLC, Reedsburg, $15,000, as it works to be the first company dedicated to specialty whey processing. This project will allow modernizing facilities in order to segregate whey concentrate in types such as organic, grass-fed and goat whey.
Applications for the next round of grants must be received by 4:30 p.m. Friday, Jan. 30. E-mail submissions are preferred, but mailed, faxed and hand-delivered applications are acceptable. A total of $300,000 is available this year, with the maximum grant award per project being $35,000. Grant recruitment is broken down into three periods. The first round of awards was announced in August.
Details on the request for grant proposals and application materials are available at www.datcp.state.wi.us/mktg/business/marketing/val-add/initiative or by calling Kelly Sime at 224-5115 or Mike Bandli at 224-5136.
