The City of Waynesboro is using a state grant to prepare for the addition of an incoming manufacturing facility.

The State of Georgia, specifically the Department of Community Affairs, awarded Waynesboro with $750,000 Employee Incentive Program grant funds in early 2022.

These funds will help the city construct a well and water treatment plant for Hart Dairy and Creamery Waynesboro, Inc.’s new manufacturing and bottling plant in the Waynesboro/Burke County Industrial Park.

Hart Dairy invested $60 million into the Waynesboro community, purchasing a 50,000 square feet building for the purpose of milk processing.

This process starts with tanker trucks hauling raw milk from dairy farms east of Waynesboro – Augusta, Georgia – to the processing facility where the milk will be pasteurized. Hart Dairy will produce its own bottles via an in-house plastic blowing process.

The facility will also produce and transport yogurt, cheese and butter varieties.

These products come from grass-fed, free-range cows that live in a non-GMO environment under the direction of Dr. Richard Watson, a pioneer in world-class grazing and pasture-based techniques.

 Once these products are packaged, they will be shipped to grocery stores across Georgia.

Hart Dairy first committed to this endeavor on June 22, 2020, by sending the City of Waynesboro a commitment letter.

The letter entailed not only the details of what the facility will do and where it will be, but it committed to Waynesboro that Hart Dairy will create 199 full-time positions with salaries ranging from $27,000 - $180,000.

With the grant money being used to make the Hart Dairy, Waynesboro is set for a positive economic upheaval.