Pine River Cheese in Kincardine is undergoing a 100 thousand dollar expansion to move into the healthy snack market by developing specialty snack cheese items.
General Manager Vi Jay Kumar says thanks to a 100 thousand dollar investment from the province — the co-operative has been able to purchase new equipment to manufacture the new cheese items.
He says they are moving into this area because the health snack market in Ontario and Canada is expanding at a rate in the double digits over the past few years.
He says besides developing he new snack items, this also will allow the company to hire three new employees, train existing employees and develop new marketing strategies.
Kumar says the new products are expected to take an additional one million litres of milk per year, which will be provided by Bruce County Dairy farmers.
He hopes they can launch this new type of cheese snack food by June.
Kumar also says they want to expand their operations so that Pine River becomes better known outside of the Grey Bruce area.
He says they want to increase distribution so that Pine River Cheese becomes better known in first in the GTA area then in other regions of Ontario and across Canada.