Dairy and plant-based milk company Chobani announced Tuesday that it has broken ground on what will be its third U.S. manufacturing plant.
Company officials said the 1.4 million square-foot facility, located on a former Air Force base in upstate New York, represents the largest investment in natural foods production in U.S. history at some $1.2 billion.
The project is expected to create more than 1,000 jobs.
"With our new plant in Rome and our original home in South Edmeston, we're entering a new dimension, partnering with hard working people across the heartland of New York to build an ecosystem of natural food production and nourish families throughout the country," Chobani founder and CEO Hamdi Ulukaya said in a statement.
The facility will feature as many as 28 production lines that could process some 12 million pounds of milk per day. Chobani expects it will produce more than 1 billion pounds of dairy products per year.
The new follows Chobani's announcement of a $500 million expansion of its Idaho plant earlier this year.
