John Jilbert sells his dairy
John Jilbert sells his dairy
By CHRISTOPHER DIEM, Journal Staff Writer
MARQUETTE — Jilbert’s Dairy has been sold to Dean Foods Company, but manager John Jilbert said little will change in the day-to-day operations of the Upper Peninsula milk distributor.
“It will still be ‘Jilbert’s Dairy’ on the milk and on the ice cream. It will still be produced here,” Jilbert said. “My son Jason is here. We’re both here. I will hand things off to him when I’m no longer around, but I plan on being here a long time.”
The biggest benefit of the sale, Jilbert said, will be access to Dean Foods’ health care for Jilbert’s employees.
“We’re able to take advantage of their health care because of the size of their company. They can afford health care far greater than we could ever supply on our own and that’s become a huge issue for our employees,” he said. “Every year we struggle with looking at a new plan — every year it seems we spend more money on less coverage.”
Jilbert would not disclose the sale price. The sale took place two weeks ago, but Jilbert wanted to wait before officially announcing the deal.
“We wanted to wait because we wanted to talk to everybody,” he said. “We have second generation customers. They are more than just customers, they are friends and we wanted to visit with them before it was officially announced.”
Jilbert’s processes about 1 million pounds of milk weekly and ships it with other products to every community in every county of the U.P. It also ships milk and other products to several counties in northern Wisconsin. The company processes milk from cows that are farmer-certified not to be treated with the growth hormone rBST.
Jilbert said the time was right to expand the company by selling it.
“We felt we were kind of at a standstill. We can’t stretch out further because the markets are not familiar to us,” he said. “If we started in other areas cold, it would be quite a challenge. For the last couple years we thought about trying to partner with someone else so we could grow further.”
Serious talks with Dallas-based Dean Foods began six months ago. The company owns about 120 companies across the nation, including Land-O-Lakes, Silk, Country Fresh and International Delight. Each company operates independently under the Dean Foods umbrella. Dean is the largest processor and distributor of milk and other dairy products in the country. It is also the nation’s leading manufacturer of soy milk, organic milk and other organic foods. It operates more than 100 plants in the United States, Spain, Portugal and Great Britain, and employs about 27,000 people.
Jilbert said the sale may or may not be an opportunity to introduce Jilbert’s to other parts of the country.
“Maybe in time to come but it might be under somebody else’s label,” he said. “We have the facility here so we’re certainly capable. But really, it’s too early to tell.”
Jilbert’s — started by John’s parents Russell and Marion in 1937 in Lake Linden — was one of the first farms to start the pasteurization process when pasteurization laws were enacted in 1948. Neighboring farms brought their milk to Jilbert’s facility for pasteurization and Jilbert’s delivered that milk under its label.
In 1955, the family moved operations to an old ice cream plant in Calumet and started to produce ice cream along with milk.
“In 1984, we realized we were at a standstill. We couldn’t grow any more in Calumet, we were starting to ship more stuff to Marquette,” Jilbert said. “So we decided to move the plant to Marquette. Since that time we’ve grown 20 times and now we go all over the U.P.”
A spokeswoman at Dean Foods referred all questions to Jilbert’s.
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