Earlier this month, it was announced that Daisy Brand, a Dallas, Texas-based company, is planning to build a new state-of-the-art, 750,000 square foot facility in Boone in 2024. The makers of cottage cheese and sour cream, Daisy is a national brand that had the choice to land anywhere across the United States. They chose Boone because we sold them on the value of our region and our state.
The announcement was the culmination of months of work by our team and a host of partners, including the City of Boone, Boone County Economic Growth Corporation, Des Moines Area Community College, Iowa State University, Alliant Energy and the Iowa Economic Development Authority. Meetings and presentations led to an unaccounted number of follow-up phone calls, a fun, short video we produced, and even a daytrip to Dallas, to finalize the deal. The Boone County Economic Growth Corporation played a vital role in acquiring land that will be sold to Daisy, and we went deep in understanding milk production in our region. Did you know that Daisy estimates needing 3.3 million pounds of milk a day? That’s the equivalent of 43,000 cows, milked three times a day.
Financial incentives were certainly part of their decision to land in Boone, but that was not the only variable. When we were part of the final two sites under consideration, I was told that one site had the available milk production, but it may be challenging to get people to move to that location. If we could help figure out the milk production, Daisy knew that their employers would love to live here. A great testament to the livability of our region.
Economic development projects of this scale and magnitude do not come around that often. In fact, this is one of the largest projects in my career and I could not be more proud of my team and our community partners. The leaders in Boone supported this project from the beginning and were generous with their time and ability to pivot in order to say yes. Thank you to Daisy Brand for their $700 million investment in our region and get to your favorite grocery store and do a dollop of Daisy!
Let’s keep moving forward because with your ongoing support the success of our region is assured!
