Bel Bets $200 Million on Smaller, Denser Dairy Snacks

Bel Group broke ground March 11, 2026, on a $200 million expansion that will double Mini Babybel output at Brookings, South Dakota, from 10,000 to 20,000 tons a year. The United States already accounts for 33% of the French dairy company’s sales, more than $1.2 billion a year at retail, and Bel says the market will deliver more than half of group growth over the next five years.

The build is timed for a snack aisle being remade by GLP-1 drugs, new federal dietary advice, and grocery lists written by software. Negar Sedghi, general manager of Bel’s U.S. cheese business, says the company is filling a fridge that holds less food, and a cart that may never pass a cheese aisle.

Bel Is Doubling Babybel Output in South Dakota

The Brookings plant is the only U.S. site that makes Mini Babybel, and Bel called the project one of its largest American manufacturing bets in more than 50 years in the country. Groupe Bel CEO Cecile Beliot said the United States is “a strategic market and a key engine of growth,” and that doubling the plant “positions us for enhanced long-term growth in the U.S.” Peter McGuinness, CEO of Bel North America, tied the spend to shoppers who want “convenient, portion-sized dairy snacks made with a few ingredients and delivering complete protein.”

Bel’s own release says the project will double Mini Babybel capacity to 20,000 tons, create around 150 jobs, and double milk sourcing from American farms, mainly in South Dakota and neighboring states. A March 2026 Brookings press kit puts current output at an average of 1.6 million Babybel cheeses a day and says finished capacity will top 3 million snack portions a day, with an extra 650,000 pounds of milk delivered daily.

THE BROOKINGS BUILD

Jake Anderson, project director for the $200 million build, said in June 2026 that hiring comes in 2027, equipment goes in that year, and first production from the new wings is targeted for 2028. That lag matters for anyone eating for protein now: the extra wheels are still two years out, while the appetite crash is already here. Bel also completed a $10 million expansion at Little Chute, Wisconsin, that added 50 jobs. Sedghi said the company runs two U.S. cheese plants, Brookings and Wisconsin, plus co-manufacturers and some imports, and that a second U.S. project is underway but still confidential.

FROM GROUNDBREAKING TO CHEESE

1. March 11, 2026: Bel breaks ground on the $200 million Brookings expansion.
2. June 2026: Anderson says the new wings should start in 2028, with hiring in 2027.
3. 2027: Equipment install and recruiting for about 150 roles.
4. 2028: First Mini Babybel from the added lines, lifting annual capacity to 20,000 tons.

Group sales were €3.7 billion in 2024, with about 11,000 people, 30 plants, and distribution in more than 120 countries. U.S. retail cheese sales doubled between 2018 and 2024. Bel now wants to double that U.S. business again, and Sedghi said U.S. cheese volume has been rising 6 to 8% a year for three years, with net sales rising faster. Two billion Babybel portions are eaten worldwide each year.

A Fridge Rewrite That Reaches the Kids

Gallup found that 11% of U.S. adults take GLP-1s for weight loss in 2026, up from 3% in 2024 and 8% in 2025, in a May 28 to June 5, 2026, survey of 5,065 adults. Another 15% said they have used the drugs for weight loss at some point. Awareness of the class for weight loss is 91%. Brand-name shots and pens such as Ozempic, Wegovy, Mounjaro, and Zepbound account for 68% of current use; 19% of users take a compounded mix. Adult obesity, by Gallup’s BMI measure, has slipped to 36.4% from a 2022 peak of 39.9%.

Sedghi put the share even higher in conversation (“one out of eight, and I think even more”) and argued the drugs do more than cut a user’s lunch. Appetite falls, so the calories that remain have to carry protein, or muscle goes with the weight. Portions shrink. Fiber becomes a gut-health problem because the drugs can constipate. The fridge changes for everyone who shares it.

GLP-1 changes the behaviour of the person using it and changes the behaviour of the family. The whole household is impacted because what sits in your fridge changes completely. I think it’s a great thing for the next generations. Adults on GLP-1 change consumption behaviour at home and kids are exposed to different food items.

Negar Sedghi, general manager, Bel U.S. cheese

That household turn is the part a plant announcement usually skips. A parent on a weekly injection is not the only customer for a 20-gram wheel. The child who learns to snack from whatever survived the new grocery run is in the same basket, and Sedghi is betting those kids grow up on smaller dairy instead of a pantry of salty bags.

WHAT CHANGES ON THE PLATE

• Smaller portions: Sedghi said GLP-1 users eat less at a sitting, which fits pre-portioned Babybel and The Laughing Cow.
• More protein per bite: Users try to protect muscle, which is why protein claims have spread across the snack aisle.
• More plants on the side: She wants Laughing Cow and Boursin used as a reason to eat salad, because fiber helps with the constipation the drugs can cause.
• A different family fridge: The shop for one person on the drug becomes the default food in the house.
• A coming correction: She expects “protein on empty calories” (cookies dressed as gym food) to fade as people learn the label trick.

She also said the U.S. rollout of GLP-1 pills will speed all of this, because swallowing a tablet is easier than managing an injectable. Bel’s press release already names “new dietary guidelines and the growing popularity of protein products and GLP-1 diets” as reasons Brookings is growing. The factory is a delayed answer to a behavior shift that started in bathrooms and kitchens, not in a cheese vat.

What’s in One 20-Gram Wheel?

Mini Babybel Original is a 20-gram piece with 4 grams of protein and 70 calories, 5 grams of fat, 3.5 grams of saturated fat, 0 grams of carbohydrate, 0 grams of sugar, 150 milligrams of sodium, and 140 milligrams of calcium (10% of the daily value). The ingredient line is pasteurized cultured milk, salt, and microbial enzymes. Bel still describes the snack as four-ingredient cheese; the U.S. panel lists three. Parents are told to cut pieces for children under 4 because of choking risk.

Sedghi’s on-the-go pitch is a two-count flow-pack: two portions deliver 8 to 10 grams of protein, “depending on the variant.” That range is just arithmetic. Two Original wheels are 8 grams. Two of the newer Pro wheels are 10 grams.

ORIGINAL VERSUS PRO, PER 20-GRAM PIECE

Babybel Pro uses pasteurized cultured reduced-fat milk plus Lactobacillus rhamnosus, and the brand says each piece carries 1 billion live LGG cultures. The SKU moved into Target in March 2026, then toward Walmart and Kroger, which is the same month Bel broke ground in Brookings. On September 2, 2026, the company’s own account answered a shopper who wanted the protein gap in one line.

Our Original recipe contains 4g of Protein per piece, and our Pro recipe contains 5g of Protein per piece!

— Babybel (@Babybel) September 2, 2026

Four grams is not a protein bar. It is a complete dairy protein with no sugar and a built-in stop sign, the wax, which is the product’s whole argument in a GLP-1 kitchen: you finish one piece, and you are done. Shoppers already treat the wheels as protein snacks in daily hauls, and they argue over Original versus Pro, including whether the 5-gram recipe tastes flatter. That taste complaint is the quiet limit on “just add protein.” If the higher-protein wheel is the one people leave in the bag, the extra gram does not reach the muscle Sedghi wants to protect.

Full-Fat Dairy Gets a Federal Nudge

HHS and USDA released the Dietary Guidelines for Americans, 2025 to 2030, on January 7, 2026. The document tells people to prioritize high-quality protein at every meal, cut highly processed salty and sweet foods, and treat added sugar as something to avoid, with no added sugar for children 4 and under. Dairy is back in the center of that plate, including full-fat dairy in the new guidelines.

The scientific text that sits behind the consumer booklet sets dairy at 3 servings a day in a 2,000-calorie pattern and says to include full-fat dairy with no added sugars. Protein targets are 1.2 to 1.6 grams per kilogram of body weight per day. Saturated fat is still capped at 10% of calories, so three full-fat servings plus meat and butter can blow that cap if someone is not counting. The guidelines leave that tension in place and ask for more research on fat types.

Bel’s Brookings release says 80% of Americans fall short each day on dairy, fruit, and vegetables, the same gap Sedghi cited. For a cheese snack with 3.5 grams of saturated fat in 70 calories, the new advice is a tailwind and a warning at once. Whole-milk cheese is no longer the item the government told you to swap for a fat-free slice. It still has to fit inside a 10% saturated-fat budget, which is easier when the portion is 20 grams and harder when the bag is a dozen.

Sedghi has been in the U.S. job for three years and described the market as moving at an Asian pace, with social media setting food rules faster than old brand campaigns. She called Babybel “nutrient-dense” and “tasty,” then added the play of the bag, the wax, and the reveal. That last part is still a human pitch. The guidelines and the drugs are why a red wax wheel now shows up in the same sentence as protein powder.

The Convenience-Store Gap Bel Still Has to Fill

Retail is still most of Bel’s U.S. cheese sales. Out-of-home (Sedghi’s “on-the-go” plus “on-premise”) is only 3 to 5% of those sales. She put U.S. eating out of home at 50% of consumption, which is the gap she wants to close, and said Bel aims to more than double that channel.

BEL’S U.S. CHEESE MATH

• Share of group sales: The U.S. is 33% of Bel, more than $1.2 billion a year at retail.
• Growth assigned to America: More than half of group growth over the next five years.
• Volume run rate: 6 to 8% a year for the past three years, with net sales faster.
• Away-from-home share: 3 to 5% of U.S. cheese sales, against 50% of American eating done out of home.

The two-count Babybel in a flow-pack is the convenience-store version of that bet: two pieces, 8 to 10 grams of protein, easy to throw in a bag. Sedghi said c-stores, which long treated “healthy” as an afterthought, are rebuilding snack sets, and that Bel’s dairy-fruit-vegetable snack lineup has no sodas and no potato chips. She called that a real edge against “the big snacking companies.”

If half of American calories are eaten away from home and Bel still rings up 3 to 5% of cheese sales there, Brookings can double output and still miss the meal that happens in a car. The plant solves supply. The two-count pack is the product. The missing piece is the cooler at the gas station, the hospital cafe, and the office grab-and-go case, which is a slower job than pouring concrete in Brookings.

Shopping Agents Do Not Search for Cheese

Sedghi is scheduled to talk at Dairy Innovation Strategies USA on September 15 and 16, 2026, at the Sheraton Grand in Chicago, on how AI is “changing the cart.” The conference agenda lists nutrition and GLP-1 alongside digital and AI strategy. Her working phrase for her own teams is blunt: marketing to algorithms as well as to people.

You’ll ask your AI agent, I’m a Claude user, to make a shopping list for you by describing what you need. You might say: ‘I have a birthday party for my son who’s four years old. I have ten kids coming and two of them are allergic to this and that. Make a list for me.’ The challenge for brands will be: how do you make sure you show up on that list? Search words won’t work in the same way anymore because even in my prompt I might not mention ‘cheese’.

Negar Sedghi, general manager, Bel U.S. cheese

Need states replace categories. A four-year-old’s birthday list can omit the word cheese and still be a cheese occasion, if the agent has learned that a kid’s party wants a portioned dairy snack. Sedghi said agents already crawl far beyond brand sites. Reddit, comments, and reviews are “one of the biggest sources.” “Garbage in, garbage out” is her quality rule: if the open web is wrong about the product, the list will be wrong too. Beautiful pictures, she said, “will not work as well as they worked before.” Data about the food (protein, allergens, portion, use case) has to be sitting where the software looks.

She does not think Bel can pay Google or Microsoft to force an agent to prefer Babybel when someone types “cheese.” Retailer agents are a second door. She named Walmart’s Sparky shopping assistant, which Walmart describes as a built-in chat that finds items, compares options, summarizes reviews, and suggests gifts from prompts such as a birthday for a two-year-old. Some shoppers will build a list in Claude or Copilot, then buy at a retailer that has its own bot. The brand has to be true in both places, which Sedghi reduced to the art of the product detail page: feed Walmart’s database the facts an agent will score.

She would not put a percentage on the budget shift. AI work sits inside e-commerce, which she called another growth channel, and the mode is test-and-learn because “it’s unknown territory.” Groupe Bel, she said, already has outside AI partners and is trying to make the company “AI-enabled, inside out.” The $200 million in South Dakota still buys vats and jobs. The cheaper, stranger spend is making sure a birthday prompt, written by a parent who never says “Babybel,” still returns a red wax wheel.

Protein on Empty Calories Will Not Last

Sedghi said salty and sweet snacks are already under pressure from GLP-1 use, the new guidelines, and a wider health kick, even if those categories are too big to vanish. She pointed to deal-making across food companies that are buying or restyling their way into “better for you” portfolios, and said Bel has been on that trend for a century, with no soda and no chips to apologize for. She also said protein claims on junk will correct themselves, because “you cannot have protein on empty calories” once shoppers notice.

That is a convenient thing for a cheese company to believe, and it is also the test of the Brookings spend. If the winning snack is a 20-gram, 4-gram-protein wheel that a kid can unwrap and an agent can justify, 20,000 tons will not sit in a warehouse. If the winning snack is still a bar with a protein number printed on a cookie, Bel will have doubled a niche. The family fridge Sedghi described, the c-store cooler she has barely entered, and the shopping list that never uses the word cheese are the three places that verdict will show up, long before the new lines run in 2028.

Sedghi takes that case to Chicago on September 15 and 16, 2026. The extra Babybel capacity is scheduled to follow in 2028, after another year of hiring and equipment, into a country where 11% of adults already eat as if every bite has to count.

Disclaimer: This article is news reporting and analysis of company plans, survey figures, and federal dietary advice. It is for information only and is not medical, nutrition, or weight-loss advice, and it is not a recommendation to start, stop, or change a GLP-1 medication or any eating pattern. Readers should talk with a physician or a registered dietitian before changing diet or medication, especially if they use GLP-1 drugs or manage a chronic condition. Figures and product details reflect the company releases, Gallup survey, federal guidelines, and brand nutrition panels cited here and can change as labels, capacity, and drug use shift.