Producers Dairy

Producers Dairy was incorporated on December 22, 1932 by a group of ambitious men who wanted to package quality dairy products for the local Fresno Community. In 1949, Larry Shehadey purchased a major interest in the company and shortly thereafter became its General Manager. His primary purpose was to offer high quality dairy products to Valley customers. That same year, 1949, Producers opened its present plant at 144 East Belmont Avenue, Fresno, California, and installed the first half-gallon and quart size service packaging machines in the Central Valley. This was the most modern packaging technique of the time and contributed to Producer’s growth in the early 1950’s. Additionally, by 1951 Producers was the first dairy to have a 100% refrigerated delivery fleet, thus assuring a cold product on the grocer’s shelves.

By the mid 1950’s Mr. Shehadey had bought out the other partners and become the sole owner. In 1959 Mr. Shehadey built the Bar 20 Dairy Farms, an ultra modern milking parlor equipped with air conditioned viewing rooms so students at local schools, as well as others in the community can watch the milking process. In 1972 another Bar 20 Dairy Farms milking operation was established. This larger operation is located west of Fresno on Whitesbridge Road. This facility is capable of milking 2,500 cows twice a day. In 2004 a state of the art Bar 20 Dairy Farm was built (featured on the Modern Marvels television series), being one of the largest dairy farms in California. Today Producers continues to owned and operated by the Shehadey family, now in it’s 3rd generation of leadership.