Ontario invests $24 million into Kingston dairy facility

Feihe International will use local milk to produce infant formula

By Diego Flammini
News Reporter
Farms.com

A Chinese company building a multimillion dollar dairy processing facility in Kingtson, Ont. received a significant investment from the province.

The Government of Ontario announced on Nov. 25 a $24.1 million investment through the Jobs and Prosperity Fund to support Canada Royal Milk’s (a division of Feihe International) infant formula plant. The facility is scheduled to open in 2020 and create more than 270 jobs.

The grant will go towards purchasing state-of-the-art processing and packing equipment for the plant, which sits on approximately 40 acres of land.

The Ontario building is the company’s first facility outside of China. It will also be Canada’s first wet infant formula facility and North America’s first goat milk infant formula plant.

A drawing of Feihe International's facility in Kingston, Ont.
Photo: Kingston Economic Development Corporation

Once completed, the plant should process about 60,000 tonnes of dry baby food each year.

And that kind of demand is an indication of the calibre of milk local farmers produce.

“Dairy farmers across Ontario and Canada are very fortunate to be able to produce some of the highest quality milk in the world,” Graham Lloyd, general manager and CEO of Dairy Farmers of Ontario, told Farms.com today. “We are happy to have a strong system that is able to support this growth, which will benefit Canadians.”

Feihe International chose Ontario for its plant because of its access to dairy farms, proximity to the U.S. border and because of where the province’s location according to Youbin Leng, chairman of Feihe International.

“Ontario and Qigihar, Heilongjiang, where Feihe’s milk resources are located, are both situated in the World’s Golden Milk Belt at 47 degrees north latitude where its natural environment is the most ideal place for producing premium quality dairy products,” he said in a statement today.

Officials from Canada Royal Milk and the Kingston Economic Development Corporation celebrated the plant’s ground-breaking ceremony earlier in the month.