REXFORD– Governor Sam Brownback  spoke Wednesday at the commissioning of an on-farm milk processing facility at McCarty Family Farms in Rexford.

The 500,000 pounds-per-day processing facility is the only one of its kind in North America.

In 2011, the McCarty family entered an exclusive multi-year agreement with the Dannon Company to become Dannon’s sole supplier for fresh milk for its yogurt plant in Fort Worth, Texas. The processing facility enables  McCarty to supply Dannon with condensed skim milk and pasteurized cream.

As Dannon’s fresh milk supplier, McCarty Dairy provides its milk directly to Dannon. This is the first time Dannon has entered into this type of partnership with a family-owned dairy.

Since the partnership was initiated in 2011, more than 50 direct jobs have been created in rural Kansas, effectively doubling the size of McCarty Family Farms to more than 100 employees.

The new condensing facility will reduce the number of trucks needed to ship milk by 75 percent and allows the farm to reuse the water that is removed during condensing of the milk. Approximately 39,000 gallons of water is reclaimed daily from condensing milk.

McCarty Family Farms is a fourth-generation family dairy farm located in Thomas County in northwest Kansas.   In 2000, in search of more land, the McCarty family moved its dairy from Pennsylvania to Rexford.

Since moving to Kansas, the dairy has grown from 800 cows to 7,200 cows and three separate facilities in Rexford, Bird City and Scott City.  Daily, the cows produce approximately 59,400 gallons of milk.

McCarty Dairy is managed by parents, Tom and Judy, and sons Clay, Ken, and Mike. Their fourth son, David, manages a separate 6,000 cow dairy in southwest Kansas.

Dannon is the top selling yogurt maker in the United States and part of Danone, a world leader in dairy products, bottled water, baby food, medical nutrition, biscuits and cereals.