Kuehnert Dairy, a sixth-generation dairy farm in Fort Wayne, has received a $100,000 grant from the Dairy Business Innovation Alliance (DBIA) to build a new cheese curd manufacturing facility on their farm.
“We are incredibly grateful to the DBIA for selecting our project out of the hundreds they received this year,” said Andrew Kuehnert, owner of Kuehnert Dairy. “This funding will allow us to produce farm fresh cheese curds, milking cows in the morning and having a value-added product by the afternoon.”
Kuehnert Dairy has been a family owned and operated farm for over 125 years in Allen County. They milk over 300 cows, have an agritourism operation and, in early 2024, will open an on-farm retail site. Kuehnert was also the 2019 Indy 500 Milkman.
This funding will be used to purchase cheese-making equipment, product packaging and marketing and promotion services.
Why Cheese Curds? Kuehnert dreamed of doing farm fresh cheese curds as he realized a void in Indiana for milk products like this. They hope to sell the products at their on-site retail store, to local grocers in the Fort Wayne area and sell directly to consumers via online retail.
“This grant program remains very popular; we are delighted to be able to help these small dairy businesses grow and diversify the product offerings. Our goal is to increase the number of thriving farmsteads and innovative dairy manufacturers in our region,” said Center for Dairy Research Director John Lucey.
The Dairy Business Innovation Alliance (DBIA), a partnership between the Wisconsin Cheese Makers Association (WCMA) and the Center for Dairy Research (CDR), awarded 41 grants totaling nearly $4 million to farmstead operations and dairy processing businesses across the Midwest.
The grants will be awarded through the DBIA’s Dairy Business Builder and Dairy Industry Impact grant programs. The Dairy Business Builder grant program is targeted at small-to-medium size farmers or processors. Supported projects are aimed at diversifying on-farm activity, creating value-added products, enhancing dairy by-products or export programs. In the latest round, DBIA will be distributing 36 grants through the Dairy Business Builder grant program to farmstead and dairy processing business in nine of the 11 states covered by the DBIA. In addition, nearly 70 percent of awardees are first time winners.
DBIA is funded by a U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) award intended to drive dairy business innovation and make the industry more robust and resilient. As part of this award, the DBIA funds research projects focused on developing opportunities for converting dairy coproduct streams into commercially feasible, value-added products. The DBIA region includes Illinois, Iowa, Indiana, Kansas, Michigan, Minnesota, Missouri, Nebraska, Ohio, South Dakota and Wisconsin.
Source: The Indiana State Department of Agriculture.