Valley Natural Beverages: dairy built to scale

Valley Natural Beverages, a division of California Dairies Inc. (CDI), set out to build a dairy plant that could keep pace with changing demand and earn trust with every product that leaves the line. In 2025, the American specialised media publisher Dairy Foods recognized the approach by naming the facility Dairy Plant of the Year, highlighting efficiency, sustainability, and safety.

A new capacity for this producer of Extended Shelf Life (ESL) and Aseptic Shelf-Stable dairy products isn’t just about a new site. It’s about a repeatable way of working: design for reliability, commission with discipline, and scale without losing control of quality. And it’s about people: operators, engineers and partners who show up, solve problems and keep improving long after startup.

Built to grow from day one

From the first plans, the Bakersfield facility was designed with future expansion as a core principle. The plant launched with three processing lines and a clear roadmap for scaling up in phases as market needs develop.

Speed mattered, too. The project moved from first shovel to producing product in about 18 months. That kind of pace takes clear decisions, tight coordination and partners who know how to execute under real-world constraints.

Marla Lane, Regional Sales Manager – Southwest USA, Pure Flow Processing, remembers how everyone involved pulled in the same direction and stayed aligned: “The breakthrough wasn’t a single ‘big moment,’ but the steady, collaborative work that kept the project moving: people in different locations, different roles and different disciplines, all pushing toward the same outcome. Alongside the Valley Natural Beverages team and our process engineering partner, all GEA experts — spanning valve, homogenization, and separator technologies — worked together as one team. We brought the right expertise into the room at the right time, coordinated details, and stayed close to the customer so nothing got lost between design, delivery and day-one operation. This project was a huge team effort.”

Reliability you can run a business on

In modern dairy processing, especially for extended shelf life and aseptic products, reliability isn’t a ‘nice to have’. It protects product integrity, delivery commitments and brand reputation. Valley Natural Beverages made that a priority in its equipment choices, including key process and flow components such as valves, pumps, separators and homogenizers.
For Marla, reliability becomes real in the smallest daily interactions. “It’s what operators notice, what maintenance teams don’t have to fight, and what supervisors can trust shift after shift. The best feedback is when they tell you, ‘We don’t even think about it’. That’s when you know the equipment is doing its job.”

The customer sees the difference in stable performance. Troy Hancock, Site Director at Valley Natural Beverages, sums it up: “I think we can say we had had zero quality failures. Equipment uptime has been everything we thought it would be. When a new facility is ramping up and building confidence in the market, that kind of consistency matters.”

Teamwork that stays after commissioning

A reliability story is also a service story, especially when a plant is new to a technology platform and moving quickly toward growth. Marla describes support as something practical, visible and ongoing: “Our customer gets the spares, the training, the service, etc. Whatever he needs, we’re going to be there. Also, once the line is running, we check in during everyday operations. We make sure service support is introduced and connected. And when there’s a hiccup along the way – which happens in every plant – we work through it, so teams know what to look for and how to respond. Preventing small issues from becoming downtime and helping people feel confident in their process is also part of service. It’s these shared habits that keep a plant stable.”

Engineering for what’s next

Reliability and scale are key. But modern dairies are also expected to operate responsibly. Valley Natural Beverages incorporated sustainability from high-level measures, such as on-site wastewater treatment and a cooling approach designed to reduce water consumption, to small-detail options, like the Low-Emission Flip Flop or LEFF function on hygienic valves that reduce water use by 92% during valve cleaning. These choices support long-term, resilient operations. And rightfully so, because Valley Natural Beverages is growing fast. Capacity from the initial setup is strong, and the teams are moving forward with the next phase of expansion.