AMPI considers options

Furth: Too soon to

say if moving butter production to

Glencoe is an option

By KEVIN SWEENEY

Journal Editor

NEW ULM -- AMPI continues to clean up the mess created by the Dec. 1 fire at its New Ulm butter plant, and explore options for resuming production.

A recent discussion with Glencoe city officials fueled speculation that AMPI would be moving its butter production operations to the inactive plant it owns there, but AMPI General Manager Mark Furth said it is too soon to say whether it will take that option.

"We met with the city public works director and the city manager from Glencoe, just exploring what the utility costs would be if we set up any butter operations in a plant we own there. We own a plant in Glencoe that we used to make cheese in, so it's one of numerous alternatives we've been looking at for temporary production," Furth said.

AMPI has looked at a couple of buildings in town, but there aren't many buildings set up for food production. One alternative AMPI is looking at is setting up production in undamaged parts of the AMPI butter plant, said Furth.

"None of these things would put us back whole, and none of these are long term" said Furth. "But we are exploring temporary alternatives."

Meanwhile the cleanup is continuing at the butter plant. The process is slow, but closer to being completed, said Furth.

The cleanup has gotten beyond the stage of scraping up mounds of butter, said Furth.

"We have cleaned up everything you can clean up with hot water," he said. "We're getting to the point where we will be bringing in specialists for walls and ceilings" that have been smoke damaged.

"And one piece at a time, we are taking pieces of equipment apart and seeing what can be fixed and what can't. It's a painstaking process, and our maintenance people have been putting a lot of long hours in on it."

The plant cleanup also includes ripping out parts of the building that are clearly unreclaimable, and shoring up parts that need shoring up.

There is still no final report on the extent of the damage caused by the fire, or what it would take to repair or rebuild the plant, he said.

About half of the 130 butter production employees who were put out of work have been involved in one way or another on the cleanup operations, said Furth.

Those who are not involved in the cleanup are receiving payments from the company's relief fund, which held a reported $12,000 as of Dec. 19, according to AMPI Communications Director Sheryl Meshke.

Although all of the plant's employees were encouraged to apply for unemployment benefits, the exact number is difficult to gauge because many applications are made by phone or through the Internet, said Jim Moody of the Minnesota Workforce Center in Mankato.

"There was a time when they used to come in and you'd know 'em by name," he said. "It's automated these days."

The fire hasn't yet translated into any great increase in the caseload at Brown County Family Services, said Tom Baumann, financial assistance supervisor for Brown County.

Journal staff writer Kurt Nesbitt contributed to this report.