BOONE, Iowa — One day after sour cream and cottage cheese company Daisy Brand announced it will come to Boone, the Iowa Economic Development Authority and Gov. Kim Reynolds approved the plan and additional funding to construct a 750,000 square-foot plant near the city's industrial park.
The IEDA added $7 million in direct financial assistance as well as tax benefits for the company, on top of the additional $625.5 million investment from the company on Friday.
"This is a real win for the manufacturing industry in Iowa. Specifically food manufacturers," IDEA spokesperson Staci Ballard said.
The project will create 106 jobs "at the start" and add an additional near-150 jobs as demand increases.
"It's probably the best news that I could have received for a city," Mayor Elijah Stines told Local 5. "This amount of investment, we've never seen before."
Some residents have voiced their concerns with odor the plant would emit once construction, but Mayor Stines said: "There's not a lot of impact as far as odor. That was a big concern for people when they're processing dairy. We don't raise the dairy cattle here. The milk is trucked in so we don't have those impacts from the livestock."
Stines said many other cities and states across the U.S. were also up for selection, but Daisy Brand ultimately landed on Boone.
The city of Boone believes this new plant will show they can be an expansion destination for other large-scale companies.
At this time, no date has been announced for when the plant's construction will begin as the city needs to finalize a property transaction first.