Darigold to build 400,000-square-foot facility in Pasco

nd dairy processor Darigold has agreed to build a $500 million butter and protein powder processing facility at the Port of Pasco.

The new facility, which will be about 400,000 square feet when completed in the fall of 2023, will be built on roughly 150 acres the Seattle-based dairy co-op has agreed to buy at the Port of Pasco’s Reimann Industrial Center on the east side of Railroad Avenue, north of the port’s Pasco Processing Center.

“This is a big investment for our farmers,” said Joe Coote, president of global ingredients for Darigold. “It will be the best in its class.”

Over half of the new facility’s milk protein output is intended for export to nations in Asia, Coote said, with much of that being used to make baby food and sports supplements.

Butter produced at the facility will be marketed regionally, Coote said.

According to Jim Klindworth, president of the Port of Pasco Commission, the deal is the largest single private industrial development in the port’s history, and will add a number of new jobs to the region.

“We are thrilled to welcome Darigold to Pasco and the Reimann as the anchor tenant in the Port’s largest industrial park. It’s incredibly rare to attract a project of this size and scope,” Port of Pasco Executive Director Randy Hayden said in a press release. “Darigold’s state-of-the-art facility will use the latest technology, serve as a model of sustainability, and create a new market for our region’s ag producers.”

According to the Port of Pasco, the Washington Legislature appropriated $7.5 million to help cover the cost of connecting the new facility to water, sewer, roads, rail and power, with additional support coming from the Franklin County Public Utility District, the city of Pasco and the Tri-City Development Council.

According to Darigold, the new facility will include “innovative technologies and conservation strategies” to treat and extract methane from wastewater and use that methane as a natural gas substitute. In addition, the facility will use up-to-date equipment to save energy, will reduce transportation miles traveled by being close to major roads and freeways, and will be designed specifically with electric vehicles in mind.

Coote said the methane produced from wastewater will be used to supplement natural gas purchased commercially, and one of the reasons Darigold chose the Port of Pasco was proximity to a high-pressure commercial natural gas line.

Reliably producing methane from wastewater in anaerobic digesters has proven to be an expensive and difficult technology in the past, but Coote said increasing numbers of Darigold farmers are using that technology on their farms and the time has come to apply it on an industrial scale.

“We believe now it is the right thing to do,” he said.

Coote said the design features and new technology used in the facility are expected to lessen the company’s carbon footprint by 25%, or projected 300,000 metric tons per year.

“We’re excited to this in a way that’s climate friendly,” he said. “We’re being very mindful of carbon.”

Coote said the facility is expected to add an estimated 1,000 jobs to the Pasco area – 100-200 in the plant itself, plus at least another 750 or so supporting jobs. Design work is underway, with construction expected to begin in 2021 and the first product expected to come off the facility’s production lines in late 2023, Coote added.

Darigold is the marketing and processing subsidiary of the Northwest Dairy Association, a co-operative owned by around 350 dairy producers in Washington, Oregon, Idaho and Montana.

Charles H. Featherstone can be reached at cfeatherstone@columbiabasinherald.com.