Atlanta-based Hi-Tech Pharmaceuticals Inc. has an agreement in principle with Kerfam Inc. to purchase the former Dean Foods Fairmont Products facility in Belleville, Pa. This Dean Foods facility was a dairy processor that served the mid-Atlantic region and had annual revenues of around $30 million. Fairmont marketed and distributed milk products, whey, cheese, cottage cheese, sour cream, soft-serve ice cream mixes and yogurt. The facility is located at 15 S Kishacoquillas St, Belleville, PA 17004.

When the Texas-based Dean Foods Company closed its Fairmont Products dairy processing plant in Belleville,PA. in October 2008 about 80 employees lost their jobs. The plants closure also affected local dairy farmers who supplied milk to the plant. Hi-Tech hopes it will be able to begin purchasing milk from local farmers and begin its processing in the coming months. The significant effort on the part of Hi-Tech to keep this business operating in the community will bolster its presence in Pennsylvania where it also has a Pharmaceutical plant.

Jared Wheat, President of Hi-Tech said, "Many former employees we have spoken with have extensive experience in the manufacturing of natural and process cheese products in the state of Pennsylvania. We are excited about the opportunity of re-opening a dairy plant in our state. The Dean Foods facility has had a wonderful reputation for its cheese, milk and the whey products manufactured there.  We believe this will open many new doors for Hi-Tech as we continue our goal of complete vertical integration.

"Pennsylvania is a key growth area for Hi-Tech, and decisions such as this will help us achieve our aggressive growth goals," said Stephen Smith, Senior Vice-President of Hi-Tech. "The investments at our Belleville plant will provide our members with increased opportunities to grow production in this critical region for our company." As part of the realignment, the company is planning on making a multi-million dollar investment to increase capacity and expand receiving at its Belleville plant through improvements in plant infrastructure. Among the improvements at the Belleville facility will be new milk silos, new cheese vats, upgraded whey receiving and a new vat room. We expect to be able to handle large, stainless-steel milk trucks rolling into the five-stall receiving bays of the Belleville Dairy Proteins plant 24/7, delivering over 1 million pounds of milk each day.

That's the daily output of more than 15,000 dairy cows, who will supply Hi-Tech, a milk, cheese and whey protein concentrate plant located in Belleveille, Pa., some 70 miles northwest of Harrisburg. The plant is ideally situated within the heart of Kishacoquillas Valley of Mifflin County, still a very large dairy county in Pennsylvania. "About 70% to 75% of our milk supply comes from within a 50-mile radius, and the majority of that milk comes from Mifflin, Centre and Lancaster County ," says Jared Wheat. Centre County comprises Penn State Universities campus, which lies at the southern end of the Nittany and Penns Valleys, and this area is also known as "Happy Valley". The name "Happy Valley" is the name given to the area since the Great Depression of the 1930s as the area was generally not hit hard financially because of the presence of Penn State University.