Welcome to the land of milk, maple leaves and mega-deals.
Lost in all the brouhaha over tariffs is the fact that Canadians are coming back to Upstate New York, and so is the milk man.
In a frank conversation with Tom Kucharski of Invest Buffalo Niagara, we learned that Western New York is on a big uptick as dairy project developers and Canada-based advanced manufacturers make huge bets on the region.
Global cheese maker Lactalis of France announced it will invest $75 million to expand its Buffalo plant, retaining 800 jobs and adding 50 new ones. Great Lakes Cheese just completed construction of its $700 million manufacturing plant in Franklinville; and J.M. Smucker Co. is investing $53 million to renovate its Milk-Bone plant on Buffalo’s East Side.
Kucharski, president and CEO of Invest Buffalo Niagara, says he is encouraged by a Canadian influx that is bringing capital investment back to Western New York.
“The Canadians are coming back,” he says. “We have established a long-term relationship with our friends in Southern Ontario, and we are once again seeing deal flow.”
Among the bigger ones are Worksport Ltd., Electrovaya and Max Advanced Breaks. “Plenty of Canadians are coming back,” Kucharski adds. “At the end of the day, these are our friends. The Toronto Blue Jays played an entire season here coming out of the pandemic. It is great to see folks from Canada returning to Upstate New York.”
Based on wide-ranging interviews with Kucharski and other economic development leaders throughout New York, here are the three things to know about the Empire State.
The Milk Man Cometh
Lactalis, a global cheese manufacturing company, announced in early July that it will be investing an additional $75 million in Buffalo and the surrounding region to expand capacity and increase production — a move that retains over 800 factory jobs and adds 50 new employees. The firm’s Buffalo plant produces Galbani ricotta, mozzarella and provolone cheese and whey powder that is distributed across the U.S. and abroad. At the nearby Walton plant, Lactalis produces Breakstone’s sour cream and cottage cheese. Investments there will add new technology and processes to increase production.
“The Canadians are coming back. We have established a long-term relationship with our friends in Southern Ontario, and we are once again seeing deal flow.”
— Tom Kucharski, President & CEO, Invest Buffalo Niagara
The twin investments by Lactalis strengthen New York’s position as the fourth-largest dairy-producing state in America. Buffalo is the anchor of that sector, as Western New York ranks as the state’s top producer of dairy products, churning out more than 3 billion pounds of fluid milk per year.
How important is the milk man in Buffalo? Consider this: 10,000 employees work at more than 1,000 food and beverage processing firms in Buffalo Niagara. A zero percent state corporate income tax on food processors fortifies this position. So does having 7% of the world’s freshwater right on the doorstep in the Great Lakes.
Statewide, New York is home to nearly 3,000 dairy farms and 630,000 cows, producing 16.1 billion pounds of milk annually. New York ranks fifth in the nation in milk production and first in yogurt and cottage cheese production.
Lactalis USA has about 4,000 workers in the U.S. at 11 factories in eight states. Its corporate offices are in New York City, Buffalo, Chicago, Bedford, New Hampshire and San Fernando, California. Founded in 1933 in Laval, France, the Lactalis Group is considered the world’s leading dairy company.
But it is not alone. The largest capital investment project of the year in New York comes from Chobani, which announced a $1.2 billion yogurt production plant project in Rome just north of Utica.
Kucharski says Upstate New York keeps winning these deals because of the region’s unique position in the industry.
“We have seen $1.5 billion in investment in agriculture and related businesses over the last four years in Western New York,” he says. “Milk-Bone is here and is growing on the East Side. We’ve been working hard to bring that area back. It was the site of a tragic shooting that killed 10 people in 2022. The Milk-Bone project is bringing 100 jobs to a neighborhood that really needs them.”
An active 4-H program and hydroelectric power boost New York’s fortunes in agricultural industries, says Kucharski.
“4-H has proven to be a very leverageable asset in the rural part of our state,” he notes. “Our hydro power rates are as low as anywhere in the country. We also have the water assets and everything else companies need to grow.”
The Canadians Are Coming!
The Canadians Are Coming!
“Electrovaya is the big one,” Kucharski says of the current wave of Canadian investment in Western New York. A Canadian manufacturer of lithium-ion batteries, Electrovaya invested $120 million and created 250 jobs in Jamestown in Chautauqua County. The firm went online with production this summer on battery cell manufacturing and will eventually grow its capacity onsite to 1 GWh.
Other notable Canadian deals in the region include Pride Pak, which invested $37 million and hired 206 workers in Medina, and Worksport, which invested $21.5 million and created 308 jobs to make truck bed covers in West Seneca.
Kucharski says investments like these are critical to both countries. Invest Ontario CEO Khawar Nasim confirmed as much when I spoke with him recently.
“The U.S. remains our largest trade partner by far,” Nasim says. “Our two national economies are integrated. Our trade is fair and balanced. It is estimated that over 1,100 Ontario-headquartered companies have operations in the U.S. We are the No. 1 trading partner for 15 U.S. states. It is just good sense to do that, and that will overcome the vagaries of economic policies.”
Throughout Upstate New York, leaders echoed that sentiment. Matt Hurlbutt, president and CEO of Greater Rochester Enterprise, says, “We’ve seen Canadian operations expand in our region. We’ve seen a number of firms try to accelerate opportunities. It depends on who they are trying to serve, and we’ve also seen inquiries from Europe. We are at a very interesting time. We need balance on policy and site readiness to help people better understand their planning and the timing of execution.”
New Yorkers Are In Their Big Deal Era
From the Big Apple to the Finger Lakes, the Empire State has never before seen an era of such big-budget blockbuster deals.
In September, the second-biggest office lease of the year was signed in New York City when law firm Simpson Thacher & Bartlett committed to take 700,000 sq. ft. of space at Extell Development’s 570 Fifth Avenue property in Midtown. Only New York University’s 1.1 million-sq.-ft. lease at 770 Broadway was bigger.
These mega-deals are not an anomaly. Earlier this year, General Motors announced an $888 million capital investment in Tonawanda; GlobalFoundries announced a $575 million deal in Malta; and Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory committed to spend $500 million in Cold Spring Harbor.
Mark Eagan, president and CEO of the Capital Region Chamber of Commerce in Albany, says the passage of the federal CHIPS Act opened the door for these mega-deals in his region of New York.
“When Congress passed it several years ago, that made the U.S. more competitive in semiconductor R&D and manufacturing,” he says. “We have been a strong beneficiary of that by claiming two big awards. One is at the Albany NanoTech Complex. That positions us to be the epicenter of nano R&D in the U.S. as $10 billion will be spent on that campus to develop the lithography center and the latest in tech for research. The State of New York, IBM, Applied Materials, Micron and GlobalFoundries all invested in it.”
The GlobalFoundries investment is huge, he adds, because “they will have access to $1.5 billion in CHIPS money. They are a non-captive semiconductor foundry. They produce chips for various clients like Apple, GM, Lockheed Martin and others. They will build an additional fab in Malta. They are also developing an advanced packaging and photonics center.”
Meanwhile, Stream Data Centers announced it will construct a $6.3 billion data center at the Science & Technology Advanced Manufacturing Park (STAMP) site in Genesee County. The facility will encompass 900,000 sq. ft. on 59 acres and create 122 jobs with annual salaries of $80,000 to $120,000.
Also in the Greater Rochester Region, Hurlbutt says SpaceX’s acquisition of Akoustis is significant for Upstate New York. Akoustis is a manufacturer of components that could be deployed by SpaceX’s Starlink satellites.
Finally, Ben Sio, president and CEO of CenterState CEO in Syracuse, says his entire 12-county region from Ithaca to Utica is gearing up for what will be the world’s largest semiconductor manufacturing complex when Micron builds out its $100 billion campus over 20 years in Clay in Central New York.
The impact of that deal is already being felt.
“In 2025, we are having the strongest year for economic growth since 1999,” Sio says. “Micron is landing here at a moment when we are on the upswing.”
