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KDSN RADIO News
ByHeart CEO has big vision for baby formula plant in southern Iowa
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The co-founder of the company operating a baby formula factory in southern Iowa says there’s an opportunity for significant growth in production capacity and the workforce at the plant in Allerton. Ron Belldegrun is CEO of ByHeart, which bought the DairiConcepts plant in Allerton after using the facility in 2019 during trials of its new recipe for baby formula.
“After six years of development, we launched as the first new infant formula manufacturer in over 15 years,” Belldegrun said during an interview with Radio Iowa.
Baby formula recalls and subsequent shortages in 2022 highlighted the fact that three companies controlled 90% of the market. ByHeart’s production of baby formula began in March of 2022. It bought the Allerton plant in 2023. “We closed the gap in what we believed was the biggest difference between breast milk and formula and that is protein, which is really one of the super foods of breast milk, really specific proteins that drive the immune system and the gut and make it easy to digest,” Belldegrun said. “Yet the two most common proteins in breast milk have been missing in formula.”
ByHeart uses whole milk from grass-fed cows and other ingredients in the powder that’s currently produced in Allerton, but canned and packaged at a facility in Pennsylvania. Belldegrun said ByHeart invested “very heavily” in the Allerton plant to make it a “state of the art” baby formula factory and there are now 100 people employed at the facility.
“We’ve increase the workforce by nearly 40%,” Belldegrun said. “Now that facility is one of the only facilities to come online to support this critically important domestic supply chain since the shortage.”
ByHeart, which owns plants in Pennsylvania and Oregon as well, currently produces enough formula to feed half a million babies a year. Belldegrun said the company has a “big vision” for what’s next in Allerton.
“We see significant growth the capabilities, the capacities, the workforce in Iowa,” Belldegrun said.
ByHeart engineers are drawing up plans to add packaging and canning to the Allerton plant and Belldegrun said he’s had “productive discussions” with government officials, university researchers, farmers and other ingredient suppliers about creating what he describes as “an ecosystem” around the southern Iowa facility.
