History of VernDale Products
VernDale Products, Inc. was founded in 1958 by LaVerne and Marlene Johnson. Prior to starting the dry milk power plant, Vern, a WWII veteran, was a manager of creamery in Chicago. Marlene, on the other hand, was living at home over her father's creamery in Chicago, (the same one that Vern was managing).
Verne and Marlene Johnson married, and used their life savings, moved their family from Chicago to Detroit and started VernDale Products Inc. The two were 50/50 partners, at a time well before woman’s liberation. The plant began with one dryer. In time, the plant grew.
Later, in the last half of the 1970's VernDale was forced to move off of their founding address on the Detroit riverfront. At odds deciding whether to move or shutdown the plant, Vern and Marlene along with their son Dale, decided to relocate at the site of the old Twin Pines dairy plant on Lyndon Street in Detroit.
In September of 2014 VernDale completed construction at it's new Weaver milk powder manufacturing facility. Using the most up to date technology, process integration techniques, and food safety methods our new facility provides additional manufacturing capacity and redundancy that meet or exceed our customers expectations.