Big Cheese in the Panhandle
Category: Economy & Business...
Posted Thursday, December 01, 2005 at 10:02 PM [GMT-6]

Here's an announcement that's bound to send the folks over at Jessica's Well into a higher level of froth:

Gov. Rick Perry today announced that Hilmar Cheese Company, the largest single-site cheese and whey products manufacturer in the world, will build a state of the art cheese factory in Dalhart, bringing nearly 2,000 jobs to the Texas Panhandle over the next decade.

“This expansion will bring 2,000 new jobs to the Panhandle and pump $190 million into the Texas economy thanks to a $7.5 million grant from the Texas Enterprise Fund,” said Perry. “As a rural West Texan, I am particularly proud that this amounts to the largest investment of Enterprise Fund dollars for a rural expansion.”

To secure the Hilmar investment over competing locations, the state offered the company a $7.5 million incentive package from the Texas Enterprise Fund (TEF) and additional funding for transportation improvements and workforce training. The state is expected to reap a return of more than 600 percent on its investment.

According to the article, that $190 million figure represents the cost of building the new 5 million-pound-per-day cheese plant. That's a pretty measurable investment. Less reassuring is this statement regarding the new jobs:

As part of its contract with the state, Hilmar Cheese Company has committed that new independent milk producers and new dairies across the region will create an additional 1,600 jobs over the next 10 years.

That seems like a Magic 8 Ball kind of projection, if you ask me. Still, this appears to be a big-time coup for a small burg like Dalhart. Good on them...but they still won't have interactive water fountains. That has to count for something, right?

Incidentally, the JW take on said fountains and other examples of government largesse is worth reading.

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Comments

"Well, now, that's just too cheesy!", she chortled while taking another bite of her grilled cheese sandwich, and big gulp of whole milk from her recycled Bama jelly glass.

"Something smells like a hunk of bleu cheese left out of the fridge on a July day."

Posted by: Cowtown Pattie at December 2, 2005 10:48 AM

Now that makes scents to me.

For most of my adult life, whenever I've thought of cheese I've thought of Dalhart. In fact at our house cheese is synonomous with Dalhart. "Dear would you like some Grey Poupon on that Ham and Dalhart?" "What's for dinner? Hhmm macaroni and Dalhart".

Posted by: Wallace-Midland Texas at December 2, 2005 02:23 PM
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