A woman-owned organic dairy headquartered in Newark has been given an $858,400 state grant to help update equipment.
Stephanie McVaugh, who in January bought Natural Dairy Products Corp., where she had been working since 1991, will apply that money to $4.3 million in new equipment to support the company’s Shelf-Life Extension Project.
The dairy will replace aging, inefficient filling machines, some from the 1960s, that cannot provide the longer shelf life the industry now requires.
McVaugh, a Goldey Beacom graduate, moved the 30-year-old business from Pennsylvania to Delaware for better utilities and Newark’s strategic location along Interstate 95.
Her grant comes from a pilot program dubbed the Modernization Investment Support Initiative funding. It’s designed to help Delaware businesses evolve and remain competitive within their industries.
“Agriculture is Delaware’s number one industry. Natural Dairy will use this grant to upgrade their equipment and stay competitive,” said Gov. John Carney. “This is what the Modernization Investment Support Initiative is designed to do – help companies like Natural Dairy stay and grow in the First State.”
The Modernization program was created in 2023 following a proposal by Delaware Prosperity Partnership and the state Division of Small Business.
Up to $5 million from the Delaware Strategic Fund has been approved for distribution through the pilot to help existing Delaware companies preemptively avert or reduce future potential risks to jobs and operations.
Equipment and contracts
Natural Dairy was begun by the MacArthur family in 1994 in Lancaster County, Pennsylvania, and is now located on Markus Court in Newark.
In 1994 Ned MacArthur and his father Norman teamed up with four organic dairy farmers in Lancaster County to create a sustainable process in which grass-fed organic milk could be produced, transported, processed and packaged – independent of the huge, volume-based milk industry – under the brand name Natural By Nature.
The company produces milk and dairy products, serves as a contract manufacturer and also has expanded into plant-based products and juices.
Natural Dairy supports 22 organic dairy farms in the tri-state region and employs Delawareans of various skill levels in good-paying manufacturing jobs.
In recent years, limitations posed by aging equipment have led Natural Dairy to lose contracts and be unable to bid for new ones.
As a result, the company had to reduce its production schedule from seven days per week to four and cut its full-time employee positions from 24 to 21.
Replacing its quart and half-gallon filling machines over the next two years will allow Natural Dairy to better serve current customers, bid on new contracts and restore its staff totals and production schedule.
“In the past few years,” McVaugh said, “our team became very aware that adding shelf life to our fluid products through modernizing our equipment would be the key to our future growth and success.”
The Prosperity Partnership connected with Natural Dairy as part of the statewide economic development organization’s Business Retention Engagement program and supported the company’s modernization funding request.
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