When word spread last year that a Canadian food maker was looking for a midwestern site for a new plant, economic developers in several states stood at attention.

At the last moment, Mercer County in western Ohio wrested the plant from competing states. The offer was an available building, as well as the largest revolving loan fund available in the state, plus use of Ohio's job tax credits.

But there was more to the decision than incentives. Says Ken Aleong, president of Basic Grains, a maker of rice cakes: "Mercer County was a one-stop shop. In other states we looked at there were two or more levels of government. This was very important for a company coming from thousands of miles away. We didn't know the landscape and we didn't have any contacts."

Basic Grains started with 80 employees and has since doubled its workforce. "We found a good workforce that helped us increase productivity by 30 to 40 percent," says Aleong. The low-fat, filling product, which is chalking up double-digit sales gains, is retailed by Winn-Dixie, Wal-Mart and others.

Mercer and Auglaize are favorably located for bringing in raw materials -- rice from Arkansas and Texas and corn from Illinois. The company will save over 75 cents a case on freight when shipping from its Coldwater site over its Canadian location.

Basic Grains' experience with Mercer County is not an isolated instance. In another case, the whole county threw itself into saving over 600 jobs at a farm equipment plant (see page N).

Both Mercer and Auglaize are star performers in farm output, ranking among the top producers every year. A major processor is Cooper, which processes 70,000 turkeys a day, or 105 million pounds a year. The company is fully integrated, raising the birds, processing breast meat and deli goods, operating the feed mill and selling in its own Columbus area restaurants. Cooper also contracts with local farmers for a million birds per year, plus 16 million cartons of eggs, and hogs.

In neighboring Auglaize County, Dannon runs the largest yogurt plant in the world. The plant started operations in 1968, producing a million cups a year. Today, it produces over a million cups per day. Dannon, which employs about 350 in Minster, is the second largest employer in the town, behind Minster Machine.

Between Dannon and the Dairy Farm Products plant in nearby New Bremen, which produces cottage cheese, ice cream mix and other dairy items, Auglaize processes about 40 million pounds of milk a year -- equivalent to the daily output of 25,000 cows. The area is the second largest milk shed in Ohio.

Dairy Farm Products is part of Milk Marketing Inc., an 11-state cooperative that processes and markets over seven billion pounds of milk a year. Dairy Farm Products also has an alliance with a Dutch cooperative. In one venture it makes the cream base for a liquor product. The Dutch group provides the R&D and marketing skills and Dairy Farm Products supplies the bricks and mortar.
	Dairy Farm Products in Auglaize County is launching such specialty items as "Moo Coolers," four-packs of flavored milk intended as a nutritional alternative to soda or to juice coolers. The company is the first licensee to take on the American Dairy Assn.-patented product.

Mercer and Auglaize have plenty of water and sewer capacity to support food processing. Distribution advantages include service by the R.J. Corman shortline and its new $5 million multimodal distribution center and sites along I-75 in Auglaize County.

	Meigs County		Pike County
	Mid-Ohio / Obetz and Gahanna		Mercer and Auglaize Counties
	Hardin County		Marion County
	Village of Leipsic		West Central Ohio
	Medina County		Fostoria