Kuehnert Dairy receives $100,000 grant

FORT WAYNE, Ind. — Owners of Kuehnert Dairy in Fort Wayne received a $100,000 grant from the Dairy Business Innovation Alliance for a new value-added facility on their farm.

The funding will be used to create a cheese curd manufacturing facility, including purchasing cheese-making equipment, product packaging, and marketing and promotion services.

“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. The Kuehnerts milk over 300 cows, have an agritourism operation and run an on-farm retail site.

“This grant program remains very popular,” said John Lucey, director of the Center for Dairy Research. “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.”

The DBIA region includes Illinois, Iowa, Indiana, Kansas, Michigan, Minnesota, Missouri, Nebraska, Ohio, South Dakota and Wisconsin.

DBIA awarded 41 grants totaling nearly $4 million to farmstead operations and dairy processing businesses across the Midwest.

“In the Midwest and across the United States, a robust network of individual dairy businesses is key to a strong dairy industry,” said John Umhoefer, executive director of the Wisconsin Cheese Makers Association. “We are thrilled to support dairy entrepreneurs in their continued growth and their contributions to the overall health of our dairy industry.”