Largest provider of private label pet foods in the U.S. has given the borough something to bark about
EVERSON – The largest provider of private label pet foods in the U.S. has given the borough something to bark about for the last seven years. Doane Pet Care (DPC) has continued to operate one of its 24 facilities in a former poultry and livestock feed mill since 1997 that now boasts 78,000-square-feet of space.
The site was initially a ballfield used by the Everson Polish American Club baseball team before Allied Mills purchased it around 1954 and constructed a poultry and livestock production plant. Brands produced at the facility then were under the Wayne Feed name.
It was expanded in 1968 to include a dog food plant enabling it to batch with eight ingredients and pre-mixes in order to package orders.
The products were loaded at seven different rail dock doors and two truck doors in addition to portable conveyors.
Four years later, Wayne discontinued its poultry and livestock products and converted the mill into a dry pet food plant.
It was sold in 1988 to the French company Royal Canine whose headquarters were based in St. Joe, Mo., but closed in the summer of 1990 relocating all of its production to a plant in Rolla, Mo.
After changing ownership another three times in the next six years, including Tri-Core Milling and Dunlap from Uniontown, Aaron Foods from Sandusky, Ohio, ended up as the final owner before it was forced to shut down the borough facility because it was too large for the low volume they were trying to produce.
It sat vacant from 1996 to 1997 before Doane Pet Care (DPC) Products purchased the plant.
The Brentwood, Tenn.-based company manufactures brands for more than 200 customers in the U.S., including the three largest mass merchandisers, the five largest grocery companies and the largest national pet specialty retailer.
It also serves many of the top pet food retailers in the U.S., Europe and Japan and is the second largest manufacturer of dry pet food.
Doug Cahill, president and chief executive officer of DPC, best described Doane as “a billion dollar company that no one knows.”
Dean Siwula, Everson regional plant manager, said the facility is the only one of its kind in Western Pennsylvania with the next closest plants located in Ohio and Virginia.
It employs 54 people and operates 24 hours a day, five days a week out of two buildings.
Siwula, who has been with Doane for more than 20 years, said the company set up shop in the Everson plant for relief and expansion into the Northeast since it was operating at capacity seven days a week at the other two sites.
And, with the plant already designed for pet food production, Siwula said it was ideal.
“It was walk in and start up,” said Siwula.
Since the 1997 purchase, Siwula said DPC invested more than $5 million into the plant upgrading it with the necessary and most modern processing equipment in the pet food industry.
So modern in fact that Siwula said half of Everson’s plant is run by an automated computer system operated by Bob Hough of Dawson who has been employed at the plant for 37 years.
The plant’s safety record also speaks for itself and is regulated by the Food and Drug Administration and U.S. Department of Agriculture. “We’re almost governed the same as other food industries are for human consumption,” said Siwula.
Siwula added the plant has operated for the last 7 1/2 years without having an employee injured and 15 months without a recorded incident from OSHA.
Safety is also factored into the equation with employees undergoing monthly training programs.
Right now, Siwula said, it’s peak season at the plant since dogs and cats tend to eat more in the winter.
According to Siwula, the plant produces 68,000 tons of pet food per year with Wal-Mart’s Ol’Roy dog food and Special Kitty cat food comprising 60 percent of its sales.
Overall, DPC has been the primary supplier of store brand pet food for Wal-Mart since 1970, manufacturing and distributing a variety of products direct to their stores while the company also produces pet food for nationally recognized grocery chains such as Kroger, Albertson’s Winn-Dixie, Safeway, Food Lion, Bruno’s and Bi-Lo, who market the products under their own store brands.
So what exactly goes into the mix?
According to Siwula, the pet food is made from bi-products from the food industry, including three whole grains consisting of corn, rice and wheat transported by a bucket elevator and pneumatic conveying systems to the top of numerous eight-foot storage bins capable of holding between 100,000 and 400,000 pounds of pet food, depending on the product.
But, before it’s even unloaded, Siwula said samples of the pet food undergo a laboratory analysis that test for micro toxins to make sure the mix meets DPC’s ingredient specifications.
Once it passes the test, the mix is then ground and sent over to another building where it is cooked.
Hough keys in the recipe and formula number into the computer system giving it just the right amount of steam and water needed to cook the product.
Siwula said the majority of productions generate between four and 200 tons depending on the formula and customer.
A scale under each storage bin determines the weight before the product is dropped into a mixer and sent over to be ground.
Siwula said the cooking process is crucial, especially for the rice formula that requires an extruding process so the bi-product results in a kibble that is transformed into various shapes with the use of a die plate.
“We make the nugget to fit the shape of the customer’s request,” added Siwula.
The pet food is then excreted and run through two 40-foot driers set between 180 and 220 degrees that draw out the moisture so it doesn’t collapse.
Since the kibble is tailored to meet the customer’s needs, Siwula said orders are processed one at a time.
All operations are conducted on the plant’s first floor while the upper floors are controlled by a computer system.
The pet food is currently packaged manually but Siwula said plans are in the making to incorporate a warehouse and automated packing lines already in place at several other plants.
While the move would eliminate those jobs Siwula said it would enable Doane to improve its efficiency and increase production.
Siwula said those employees would be relocated to other departments within the facility.
“To stay competitive we have to do this…it’s a plan we’ve had on the drawing board,” said Siwula.
Although the idea is still in the planning stage, Siwula said he hopes it will evolve sometime next year. “That’s where we’re going next, we won’t even touch a full bag of feed,” added Siwula.
Since the bags range in weight from 3 1/2 pounds to 55 pounds, Siwula said the automatic bagging would expedite the process and keep production moving steady. The bags are wrapped and tagged for the customer before being transported to one of seven loading dock doors utilized by roughly 19 tractor-trailers per day.