On Thursday, Gov. Kathy Hochul (D-NY) celebrated the fairlife groundbreaking ceremony.
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NewsTranscript
00:00state-of-the-art production center. Thank you for celebrating this important milestone with us.
00:06Joining me today is the New York State Governor Kathy Hochul, Fairlife CEO Tim Dolman,
00:13County Executive Adam Bellow, and Town Supervisor Tom Flaherty.
00:19They're sharing in this day and this what this facility is going to mean for the Coca-Cola
00:23Company and Fairlife and for the state of New York. The Coca-Cola Company was founded to bring
00:30one soda product to the people of downtown Atlanta nearly 138 years ago. We're now proudly offering
00:38a total portfolio of beverages crafted to meet consumers' ever-evolving tastes and needs,
00:44whether that's through water, sports drinks, juice, coffee, or of course dairy.
00:51We have been a strategic partner to Fairlife since 2012 and officially welcomed them into the
00:58Coca-Cola Company in 2020. Fairlife's proprietary ultrafiltration process has helped introduce
01:06many consumers to the benefits of dairy while becoming a favorite household product as well.
01:13Today Fairlife continues to outperform the value-added dairy category and new production
01:19facilities like what we're building here will help bring continued growth and expansion for the brand.
01:26While this might be Fairlife's first footprint in New York, the Coca-Cola Company already has a
01:32strong foundation here. We serve every community in every state in the country thanks to our bottling
01:38partners and in New York we're grateful to have bottling partners like Coca-Cola Beverages Northeast
01:45and Liberty Coca-Cola Beverages who refresh the state of New York on a daily basis.
01:51At Coca-Cola we talk about our purpose to refresh the world and make a difference.
01:56The development and what we're celebrating today is a clear example of how we do both.
02:02In 2022 alone, the Coca-Cola Company alongside our bottling partners contributed $2.6 billion
02:09to the state's economy. We support over 28,000 jobs in the state of New York and we've invested
02:16$1.3 billion directly in the state through vendors and suppliers with our bottling partners.
02:23This Webster facility represents an additional $650 million investment in New York. We will
02:29deepen the impact and create more jobs and support the livelihood of more people in the state.
02:35None of this would be possible without the leadership of Governor Kathy Hochul.
02:40Her vision for New York's upstate region and agricultural industry are some of the many
02:45reasons New York was a natural fit for the Fair Life brand. Her administration has been a tremendous
02:51partner to us throughout this process. I also want to thank County Executive Bellow and Town
02:57Supervisor Flaherty for their support of this project. I can't wait to see what we can achieve
03:03together. With that, we're going to stop and have the groundbreaking ceremony and then we'll
03:09proceed with our program right after. Thank you. Please remain seated during the groundbreaking.
03:19Thank you.
03:33Thank you.
04:03Thank you.
04:14Thank you.
04:34Are we on? Okay, we're on. Thank you.
04:36Thank you.
04:39So, thanks for all being here, of course. I want to take a moment to introduce Governor Hochul
04:46and then she's going to give some remarks and she's got to get back to New York, always working
04:52to the city, and then I'll say a few more remarks. But I just want to take this time and again
04:58appreciate Governor Hochul and all the work that you've done here. We had a lot of choices on where
05:03we were going to put a facility all throughout the Northeast, the East Coast in general,
05:09and I remember the very first conversation we had. You were very straight to the point.
05:14You said you were big into agriculture. You shared some of your family history with me,
05:19and that meant a lot, quite honestly, as someone else who grew up on a dairy farm.
05:22And I knew it was genuine and I think it was a big deal for us to be able to look to New York
05:29as a place that we could make a major investment like this and know that we'd have continued
05:34support for agriculture in general, not just the dairy farming, but the whole agricultural
05:39state side of it. So, with that, thank you very much for all you've done, all the support,
05:44and appreciate you coming up and sharing some things. Thank you.
05:48Well, thank you, Tim, for believing in New York. This is an extraordinary day for all of us. I
06:04could not be prouder of this moment. I truly mean that. I want to thank you. I want to thank Jennifer
06:10Mann for all the investments Coca-Cola makes. I know you said you refresh New Yorkers. You also
06:16recharge us every afternoon when I have a small, you know, those little mini ones you make now.
06:20That's all I need, a glass of ice, that mini Coke, and I can power through the night. So,
06:25thank you for keeping the governor going. Also, I want to thank Adam Bellow for a commitment from
06:32the county. It's always so important to have a partnership with the state and the county and
06:37the local. Our supervisor has joined us as well, Tom Flaherty, and this is a big deal.
06:42I was on a town board for 14 years. If someone had called me and said $650 million of investment,
06:49250 jobs, I probably would have fallen over. So, congratulations, you know. Daniel Webster,
06:55be proud that a community named after him is now going to continue this great legacy of excellence,
07:01and I appreciate that. And Commissioner Richard Ball, our Agriculture Commissioner,
07:04is also an important part of Empire State Development. So, it's a great day for us,
07:09and I just want to say a couple things. I remember the first conversation. Now, one thing,
07:14you know, I did grow up in an Irish Catholic family, come from a long line of dairy farmers
07:18in County Kerry and in Dublin, and when I heard that there was this opportunity for us to have the
07:24largest dairy processing facility in the Northeast, my competitive juices were just racing. I mean,
07:31I just said, no, we're not losing this. I mean, they had me at hello, I've got to get this,
07:35I've got to win this. So, I called up Tim and, you know, out in California,
07:40and we talked about stories and, you know, what is it going to take, what is it going to take,
07:44what is it going to take? And I said, I will personally navigate this. I will make sure that
07:48I'm there for everything. Forget about the budget, I'm coming. I said, I will be there
07:53every step of the way for you, and I believe my team has made that happen and our local partners
07:57and so, but also take someone like you to say, I'm going to take that leap. And this is a new
08:02venture for Fairlife to come to New York, but I'm really hopeful that, I don't know who is number
08:08one in the whole East, but if we're going to be number one in the Northeast, who's number one
08:11in the East? We'll be number one in the world. Okay. So, we'll be number one in the world,
08:16okay? So, that's what I'm going for right now. And also, I did want to recognize Bob Duffy is
08:21here too as well, a great partner who runs our Chamber of Commerce. Anything with business goes
08:26through Bob, so thank you, Bob. So, let me just give a few reflections on this. I do have to run
08:30and I appreciate you expediting the shovel move there, but I also said, people don't think about
08:37New York State as being a dairy state. When you go anywhere else, they think that we are Manhattan.
08:44I'm from Buffalo. I used to represent a congressional district, which was the most
08:49rural in the state, including Wyoming County, which has 20,000 people and probably 40,000 cows,
08:58and I got to know all the cows personally. You do this when you're in Congress and you have a
09:01small district. So, this is personal to me. This was a statement that this part of our state matters,
09:07that these investments, yes, could have gone to other parts of our country, but you pick this
09:12area and you pick this community because you saw the potential. You saw the caliber of our
09:18workforce, and I will tell you this, nobody works harder than people here in upstate New York. It
09:24is that legacy of commitment. I mean, my dad and grandpa worked at a steel plant. People worked
09:29here at Kodak. People work in these companies a long time, so when you recruit somebody,
09:33they're part of the family. They'll stay with you. I know how important it is, but we have over 3,000
09:38dairy farmers here, and this is a lifeline for them as well. This gives them hope, and I believe
09:44in them. I've toured so many dairy farms around the state. This is such a big deal to them as well.
09:50So, I'm real excited about this. We've made a lot of investments here. We've done a lot,
09:55and I also want to make sure that it's easier for all of our farmers. My budget reflects that. I've
09:59said, what are we doing in our budget for farmers, for agriculture, and making sure that when there's
10:04an overtime expense, that the state will absorb that for you. They will continue to make investments
10:09that will help the investment tax credit for farmers, you know, increase that dramatically.
10:14So, we're doing a lot of things there as well, but I will tell you this,
10:18without investments like this, without people believing in us, without this level of saying
10:24we're going to make it happen, we're not the great state that we could be. This is how we achieve our
10:29potential. You find about the opportunities, you reel them in, you persuade people, you get down
10:34on your knees and say, please come to New York, and we'll make you never regret that decision.
10:40I also want to say, with the support we had from ESD, 20 million from ESD, 20 million from our
10:45FAST New York. FAST New York is what you see here. People say, what does that stand for? That
10:50stands for getting shovel-ready sites in advance. That gives you the competitive advantage you need,
10:57instead of saying, well, let's recruit them, and then someday we'll find you a site, and then we'll
11:01get all the permitting, and then we'll figure out the infrastructure. No, you offer companies this,
11:07and that's what we're investing in. It's just smart governance and smart economic development.
11:11It's a good strategy, and we see this bearing out here today in this enormous site.
11:16I didn't know it was going to be this big, Tim. This is really big. This is really big.
11:21But because you're so big, we also need to support our local community, and so we are
11:26announcing today 20 million dollars for the town of Webster to fund a new on-site wastewater
11:32treatment plant. There you go. Take a bow. Take a bow. You're welcome. You're welcome.
11:38We were just here announcing a 4.5 million dollar, we call them New York Forward grants,
11:46and again, investing in your downtown, so the employees you have here will revitalize
11:50downtown Webster. So we believe in our communities upstate, and this is proof positive of that.
11:55So I have to wrap up and get on a plane and get back to work, but I wish I could stay,
12:00hang out with all these nice people here. Nobody's asking me for anything other than what Tim did,
12:04but I'm honored to be the governor of a state that number one agricultural product is dairy.
12:12My family back in Ireland would be very proud of this. Thank you very much.