Business & Tech

UPDATE: Golden Guernsey Dairy Closes Its Doors

Golden Guernsey, with facility on Delafield Street in Waukesha since 1955, abruptly shuts down operations on Saturday; future is unknown.

This story was updated at 7 a.m. Monday

Golden Guernsey has ceased operations, and the future of the company is unknown.

The company abruptly shut its doors on Saturday, leaving more than 100 employees wondering about their future.

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“No milk haulers were allowed in and no trucks left for deliveries,” emailed one employee who asked to not be named.

Waukesha Patch has attempted to contact the company via two phone numbers – one was disconnected and one had no voicemail system available.

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However, Today's TMJ4 reported Sunday that Golden Guernsey President Brad Parks confirmed that the plant has closed, though he wouldn't say that the 112 employees have lost their jobs. He told the TV station it was an "ongoing" process.

“My dad used to work there.....he heard from his former co-workers that they just shut down....calls made to their homes yesterday to let them know. How sad,” wrote a commenter on Waukesha Patch’s Facebook page.

On Twitter, a person told Patch he is a distributor out of the plant. Armed guards shut down the plant on Saturday.

“We have to move everything outta there. Locked up tight all that milk going to waste lots of ppl out of a job now,” tweeted @thetrimshow

When asked if he knew anything about the plant shutting down, Waukesha Mayor Jeff Scrima said Saturday night that the city was not provided any information about a possible closing.

The Journal Sentinel reported that Lynn Mielke, president of Mapleton Dairy Haulers in Oconomowoc, was told by Golden Guernsey managers early Saturday that the plant was shutting down.

Mielke told the newspaper he was scrambling to find alternate supplies of milk for hundreds of local schools that purchase milk from the company.

The company started in 1930 as a farmer-owned cooperative in Milwaukee, and by 1935, Golden Guernsey delivered milk to the homes of 20,000 customers in Wisconsin, according to its website. By 1955 construction began at its current facility at 2101 Delafield St.

Dean Foods was ordered to sell the plant by the Wisconsin Department of Justice in order to settle an antitrust lawsuit because Dean Foods owned about 60 percent of milk processing plants in the state. an investment firm that planned to continue operations of the dairy processing facility.

Efforts to reach OpenGate, which is based in Los Angeles, were unsuccessful.


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