From the highway, Cache Valley looks like a college town surrounded by farmland. The county’s numbers tell a bigger story: a $9.1 billion local economy where factories drive most output, the university is the biggest employer, and farms still feed everything. The valley also keeps drawing new residents and new businesses for reasons the numbers make plain: steady in-migration, a university that keeps feeding the workforce, and more room to grow than the crowded Wasatch Front. Here is how the valley’s major industries actually fit together, and why the connections matter more than any single sector.

A Quick Map of the Valley’s Major Industries

Manufacturing is the valley’s economic engine. It contributed $1.37 billion to Cache County’s GDP in 2024, more than any other industry (USAFacts), and it leads private employment with 12,132 jobs, about 26 percent of tracked private-sector positions (ExecutivePulse). Food manufacturing alone employs roughly 5,000 people, and cheese producer Schreiber Foods and beef processor Swift Beef both rank among the county’s largest employers.

Government and education employ about 11,700 people across the county, and Utah State University is the single largest employer, with between 7,000 and 9,999 workers (Logan major employer profile). The county school district follows close behind.

Agriculture built the valley and still anchors it. Animal production runs at nearly three times the national concentration for a county this size, and the dairy and livestock operations scattered from Wellsville to Richmond remain the base of the local food chain. Cache County alone produces roughly a fourth of Utah’s milk (USU Extension).

Healthcare keeps a large workforce in the valley. Intermountain Healthcare operates major facilities in Logan and ranks among the county’s largest employers.

Professional services and research round out the base. Conservice, a utility-billing and software firm, employs between 1,000 and 1,999 people, and USU’s Space Dynamics Laboratory, the research organization that builds hardware for space and defense missions, matches that range.

Retail and trade employ thousands across the valley, with Walmart among the county’s ten largest employers.

Inside the Manufacturing Engine

The manufacturing base is not one industry wearing several costumes. It is several distinct layers, and most of them are more concentrated here than in the average American county (ExecutivePulse):

• Food manufacturing: 5,055 jobs, 7.3 times the national concentration. The anchor layer, fed by the valley’s dairies.
• Computer and electronic products: 1,723 jobs, 4.4 times the national concentration. Campbell Scientific, the measurement-instrument maker headquartered in Logan since 1974, broke ground on a new 82,000-square-foot manufacturing facility there in March 2024 (Campbell Scientific), and Thermo Fisher Scientific runs a bioprocessing operation in Logan.
• Plastics and rubber products: 1,086 jobs, 4 times the national concentration. Invitrogen, a life-science products manufacturer, ranks among the county’s largest employers.
• Printing, chemicals, and miscellaneous manufacturing: another 2,000 jobs combined, all running above national concentration levels.

Sitting on top of those layers is Icon Health and Fitness, the valley’s largest manufacturer by employment. The Logan company produces home fitness equipment for brands including NordicTrack and ProForm (Forbes), which means treadmills and exercise bikes are as much a Cache Valley export as cheese.

The Food Processor Belt

The food layer deserves its own look because it makes the valley’s economy unusual. Cache County turns roughly a fourth of Utah’s milk into cheese. USU economists count multiple cheese plants in the county, including Gossner Foods in Logan, Schreiber Foods, and the Cache Valley Dairy Association cooperative (USU Extension). South of the cheese plants, Pepperidge Farm runs a major baking facility in Richmond, an operation the state supported with a post-performance tax incentive when its parent company expanded it (Go Utah). And in Hyrum, Swift Beef operates a USDA-inspected slaughter and processing plant that anchors the valley’s livestock end.

That belt is the clearest example of how the valley’s industries compound each other. The dairies supply the cheese plants, the co-op structure keeps raw milk local, and the finished product leaves the valley on refrigerated trucks bound for grocery chains across the region. It also raises the stakes on the valley’s logistics layer, because food freight carries requirements that most other freight does not.

Connection One: The Farms Feed the Factories

Food manufacturing runs at 7.3 times the national concentration in Cache County. That number is not an accident of geography. It exists because the raw material is next door. Milk travels a short distance from local dairies to the cheese plants named above, and livestock moves from valley ranches to beef processing, all within the same county. The farm-to-factory supply chain here runs on short distances, keeping transportation costs low and products fresh.

Connection Two: The University Feeds Everything Else

USU’s role in the valley goes well beyond its payroll. The university supplies the workforce pipeline for every other industry on the map, from engineering graduates who land at the valley’s manufacturing plants to the teachers, nurses, and accountants who staff the rest of the economy.

The Tech Layer Grew From the University

The clearest proof is the valley’s tech sector, which exists largely because the university does. The Space Dynamics Laboratory is a nonprofit government contractor owned by Utah State University (Wikipedia), and it builds sensors and instruments for NASA and defense missions without leaving the valley. The lab has grown to the point of producing its first company spin-out (USU Today).

The same pattern repeats across the valley. Spartronics, an electronics contract manufacturer in North Logan serving aerospace and defense customers, was started by a USU alumnus in a converted gas station in Hyrum and grew into a significant valley manufacturer (Utah Public Radio). Thermo Fisher Scientific runs a bioprocessing operation in Logan, and Conservice employs a large software workforce there. This tech layer is the reason computer and electronics manufacturing runs at 4.4 times the national concentration in the county. It shows up in the outbound freight stream too: sensitive instruments and defense electronics leave the valley alongside the cheese and the treadmills, often on custom crating and pallets sized for the equipment.

Connection Three: Everything Leaves the Valley on a Truck

Cache Valley sits at the top of its own corridor. Every wheel of cheese, crate of exercise equipment, pallet of feed, and research instrument leaves through the same routes: Sardine Canyon and the highways south toward the Wasatch Front and Interstate 15. That shared exit path makes transportation and logistics a quiet partner industry for every sector above. Cold storage, regional trucking, and distribution keep the valley’s output moving. That efficiency shows up directly in what local producers can charge and still compete.

The Logistics Layer: How Everything Gets Out

Freight in Cache Valley moves by truck, and the trucking industry is bigger than most residents notice. More than 200 active freight carriers are registered to Logan addresses alone (HaulAtlas), from L.W. Miller Companies, a carrier and diesel repair operation headquartered in Logan (L.W. Miller), to family-run outfits like Lloyd Facer Trucking in Smithfield (Facer Excavation). Refrigerated trailers carry the cheese and beef, flatbeds haul equipment and building materials, and dry vans move everything else, all feeding a corridor that ends at Interstate 15 and the Wasatch Front distribution network.

And almost none of that freight moves without a wood pallet underneath it. Food processors need clean, dry, food-grade pallets that pass customer and third-party audits. Equipment makers need consistent footprints that cube out a trailer. Exporters need heat-treated pallets stamped to the ISPM-15 standard that international borders require. We know this layer well, because we have been building, repairing, and heat-treating pallets in Smithfield, Utah since 1998 as the pallet supplier in Northern Utah that many of the valley’s shippers rely on. The pallet is the least glamorous object in the valley’s economy, and one of the few that every single industry touches.

What the Forecast Looks Like

The Kem C. Gardner Policy Institute projects Cache County to grow from about 134,000 residents in 2020 to more than 226,000 by 2060. The county’s housing task force estimates the valley needs roughly 11,600 additional housing units by 2030 to keep pace. For anyone weighing where to open or expand a business, those numbers translate into three things: a growing local customer base, a steadily expanding labor pool fed by more than a decade of in-migration, and a university that keeps producing graduates in engineering, food science, and business.

The rest of the state helps the case. Utah entered 2026 with one of the country’s more resilient economies (Gardner Institute), and Cache Valley offers what the crowded Wasatch Front lacks: more breathing room and a manufacturing cluster where suppliers, freight routes, and skilled labor already exist. A new business that plugs into that network does not have to build it first.

Why Businesses Keep Choosing the Valley

The growth forecast is not an accident, and the reasons behind it are the same connections this article has traced. The university keeps producing talent, and companies started by USU graduates keep proving the valley can grow its own employers. State incentives reward expansion here, as Pepperidge Farm’s Richmond growth showed. The manufacturing cluster means a new arrival finds suppliers, freight routes, and skilled labor already in place. And the setting itself, a college town at the foot of the Bear River Range that regularly lands Logan on small-city quality-of-life rankings (Logan City), makes recruiting easier than it is in bigger metros. Economic development officials have called Cache Valley Utah’s other innovation hub (Utah Policy), and the label fits: this is a valley where companies can start, stay, and grow.

Questions People Ask About the Cache Valley Economy

What are the biggest industries in Cache Valley?

Manufacturing leads both output and private employment. It generated $1.37 billion of the county’s GDP in 2024 and employs more than 12,000 people. Government and education lead total employment, with Utah State University leading the sector. Agriculture, healthcare, retail, and professional services fill out the rest of the base.

Who are the largest employers in Cache County?

Utah State University ranks first. Icon Health and Fitness, the sporting goods manufacturer, ranks second, followed by the county school district. Conservice, Intermountain Healthcare, Invitrogen, Swift Beef, Walmart, Schreiber Foods, and the Space Dynamics Laboratory all employ between 1,000 and 1,999 people, according to the Utah Department of Workforce Services.

How does agriculture connect to manufacturing in the valley?

Local dairies and ranches supply the raw material for the valley’s food manufacturers, and the short distances between them help food manufacturing run at more than seven times the national concentration here. The farms and the factories function as one linked supply chain rather than two separate industries.

If you live in Garden City, or any of the other communities around Bear Lake, you know that drought has been a long-standing issue for the area. The water levels have been lowering year after year and even the periods of heavier snow and rainfall haven’t brought it up to even the levels I remember as a kid. With that in mind, water conservation is a concern for a lot of people. If you’re interested in saving water, you might consider xeriscaping.

What is Xeriscaping?

Xeriscaping comes from Greek: Xeros, meaning dry. It’s a low-water, low-maintenance style of landscaping that relies on local plants and minimizing grass to reduce the use of water to keep it healthy. Because a properly set up xeriscape is adapted to the local environment, it requires very little work and can survive on the amount of rainfall natural to the area. It saves a lot of time and money on its maintenance and, with proper design it can look amazing. It offers many benefits.

Water Conservation

The big one.

A lot of us rely on grass for our yards because we think of a nice, manicured lawn as aesthetically pleasing. The problem for people living in Utah is that grass like that isn’t suitable for the region. We’re too dry for it. While grass does have some advantages, like reducing water run-off, it takes a lot of water to keep it green, especially when it’s first installed. Instead of covering your whole lawn, xeriscaping reserves grass for specific patches where it serves some specific purpose.

According to studies, cities that implement xeriscaping projects on a broad scale can see as much as 60% reduction in water use. In places like Garden City, where droughts are common, that is a huge advantage. With more water to go around, there’s less fighting over water use. What water does get used is used for things that better the community as a whole. It also saves you a bundle on your water bill.

Lower Maintenance

Lawn maintenance is time consuming. Every week, you have to mow your lawn, water your plants, and do other things to help your lawn adjust to the environment you live in. Xeriscaping avoids this by doing away with grass. Grass makes up the bulk of the work and water spent on your lawn. Take that out and suddenly you have much less to worry about. Keep in mind, of course, that lower maintenance isn’t zero maintenance. You’ll still have to prune trees, repair damage, and clean litter, but this is very little compared to the hours you spend keeping your grass in good shape.

Allergy Reduction

Allergies are an issue for a lot of people. It can range from a mild annoyance to a potential health problem. Grass is a potent allergen and the longer it grows, the worse it gets. Plus, cutting the grass fills the air with those allergens. Doing away with grass eliminates this problem altogether. Furthermore, a lot of weeds are specifically evolved to rely on grass to survive. These weeds, also allergens, find it hard to grow in a xeriscaped yard.

Less Pollution

Grass lawns require a lot of fertilizers and pesticides to keep in good shape. When you water your grass, these chemicals get washed out, where they flow into rivers, lakes, and other bodies of water. This is called “urban runoff” and it’s a serious pollution problem for many cities.

Xeriscaping significantly reduces this problem. With no grass, you won’t be needing as much fertilizer and pesticides, and you won’t be watering your lawn as much. This combination means a lot less pollution in our natural water sources. Less pollution is good for everybody.

Better Soil Health

One of the ways that you reduce grass is by replacing it with mulch and shredded bark. Mulch and bark hold moisture better than grass. This reduces evaporation, which causes a lot of water loss for your average lawn. By reducing evaporation, you also reduce irrigation needs. They also contain a lot of nutrients that the plants you do grow can benefit from, further enhanced with the addition of compost and enriched topsoil, further reducing the fertilizers needed to keep your landscape healthy.

Furthermore, by improving water retention, you reduce erosion without needing to rely on lots of grass to hold the soil in place. Since the soil holds water better, it’s less likely to lead to run-off and carry the soil away during periods of rain.

Those Concerned About Water Conservation Should Try Xeriscaping

For many reasons, the issue of water is probably not going to get better anytime soon. Between the continued drought, regular summer heat, and increased water consumption as part of the tech industry’s latest billion dollar scheme destined to eventually go the way of the dodo, water conservation is going to be much more important to a lot of people.

Xeriscaping is a simple thing you can do to help. With a bit of planning and efficient irrigation, you can create a landscape for your home or business that won’t take much water, won’t need a ton of maintenance, improves soil quality, and still looks good. You waste less water, leaving more for everyone and get a unique and interesting yard at the same time. Everybody wins!

Their new address is 450 Kayenta Circle, Cedar City, Ut 84720

Easy Breezy Pros Helps Logan, Utah Enjoy Clean Air Indoors

In Logan, Utah clean air is a huge concern. As the population grows, air pollution increases. It’s not a problem during the summer months, at least not as much, but our winters can have some of the worst air in the country thanks to the inversions. This can have significant effects on our health.

Easy Breezy Pros Cares About Clean Air

While the outdoor air quality is affected by many factors and can’t be easily fixed, what about indoor air quality? For that, Easy Breezy Pros has stepped up. Founded in 2020 in Cache, Utah, this local company has the simple goal of doing what it can to improve the indoor air quality of Cache Valley’s residents and businesses. Easy Breezy focuses its efforts on three main areas: duct cleaning, carpet cleaning, and education.

Duct Cleaning

The air ducts of your home are the main way air circulates. Modern homes and buildings tend to have many methods of keeping these ducts clean. They are sealed, with filters on the areas where air flows in and out. This helps keep the air circulating in your home fresh and breathable, but even this won’t completely keep dust and dirt out. Cache Valley is for having a lot of pollen in the spring, meaning allergy troubles, like coughing and itchy throats.

This means that regular duct cleaning – usually once every 3-5 years – is needed to ensure that the ducts are free of pollutants. With additional sanitization, they can help make sure the ducts don’t spread disease.

In addition, they also cover dryer vents. Many dryer vents are poorly designed, either too long, or following an upward path that fights against gravity. This means it’s easy for them to get clogged with lint, which creates a fire hazard.

Carpet Cleaning

This might not seem like it relates to air quality at first, but the carpet is one of the biggest filters for dust and grime in your home. Carpet fibers provide a lot of surface area for dust to cling to and the static charge of a carpet helps hold them in place. Like all filters, however, there’s only so much it can hold. Over time, the build-up of dust reaches a critical level, at which point walking on your carpet only kicks more dust into the air.

Regular vacuuming helps reduce the problem, but it isn’t enough. Over time, the pressure of walking on the carpet causes the dust to harden and crystalize. This hardened dust reduces the carpets ability to filter dust out of the air and it also damages the carpet fibers, making it look older and more faded.

Professional carpeting cleaning uses specialized cleaners to break this dust up so that it can be removed, extending your carpet’s overall appearance and lifespan by as much as 5-10 years.

Education

One thing Easy Breezy Pros cares about just as much as getting the job done is helping its customers understand how the process works. While regular carpet and duct cleaning can improve indoor air quality, there’s more you can do to take it even further. Easy Breezy Pros’ uses special equipment when they do their duct cleaning so you can see what’s going on.

If there are problems in your ducts that are making the issue worse they can locate them and help you connect with people who can fix the problems. They also provide information on other things to watch for, or steps you can take to further improve your conditions. Armed with this knowledge, Cache Valley residents can be sure that they have the best indoor air quality possible.

Improved Energy Efficiency

Clean air is about more than just breathing easy. According to the US department of energy, more than half of any given house’s energy consumption comes from heating and cooling. A part of being energy efficient is having your equipment run at its best capacity. When furnaces and air conditions get dust in them, that dust creates additional friction that forces your equipment to work harder to do the same job.

Keeping your equipment clean will ensure that they suffer less wear and tear and stay efficient for longer. That’s why Easy Breezy also works on cleaning out this equipment as well as the ducts, to the extent that the warranty allows them to do so.

This not only reduces your power bill, it also reduces the energy use of your building. Reduced energy consumption means less pollution in general, which can help improve overall air quality. Every little bit helps.

Easy Breezy Goes The Extra Mile

Some carpet and duct cleaning companies will give you introductory, foot-in-the-door prices, but won’t do much unless they manage to upsell you on more services, but Easy Breezy believes in going the extra mile. They will give you the full cost before they start and provide you with the full services for the job. They won’t walk away with a job half-finished, or catch you off-guard with surprise extra charges.

About Easy Breezy Pros

Easy Breezy Pros is headquartered in Providence, Utah. You can find them on Facebook or visit their website.

ATX Auctions contacted Mr. Ricks after the owner discovered him on Instagram and commissioned an original painting. They were so impressed with the overnight turnaround, and the top quality of the work, they immediately offered him an opportunity to showcase his paintings.

Mr. Ricks was asked to create 50 unique, original paintings for the auction.
The 24 day auction will end on December 15th, 2021.

For more information and to see Mr. Ricks’ painting, please visit his links on Instagram and at ATX Auctions:

Instagram:
Instagram.com/seannathanricks
Art Auction:
https://atxauctionsutah.hibid.com/catalog/332884/consignment-local-art-auction-11-21—12-15/?

The public is also welcome to donate unused or discarded eyeglasses at the breakfast fundraiser. The breakfast will be in the Lions Club Pavilion at Willow Park, 500 West 700 South, in Logan. Breakfast prices are $6 per person, $5 per senior, $3 per child, or $16 for a family of four (immediate family members).

For more information concerning this or other Logan Parks and Recreation Department programs or facilities contact us at (435) 716-9250 or stop by 195 South 100 West, Logan or visit us at pr.loganutah.org.

For more information concerning this or other Logan Parks and Recreation Department programs or facilities contact us at (435) 716-9250 or stop by 195 South 100 West, Logan or visit us at pr.loganutah.org.

Logan, UT – Juniper Systems is excited to announce the launch of its latest Cedar rugged tablet — the Cedar CT8X2. This next-generation tablet offers increased processing power, RAM, and storage, all running on the Android 10 operating system. The CT8X2 offers all this while retaining the same powerful GNSS functionality of the previous generation at the same affordable price point.

“The CT8X2 is our best Cedar tablet to date,” said Cody Draper, Cedar Product Manager. “It exceeds expectations in terms of price, performance, and versatility. It is a perfect device for those looking for a mobile data collection device that offers a much greater degree of ruggedness than a consumer product.”

Powered by an octa-core Snapdragon CPU from Qualcomm®, the CT8X2 provides a snappy user experience while running demanding applications. The device’s increase in RAM allows for larger files and data-intensive tasks to be completed with ease. A bump in onboard storage prevents users from needing to offload data frequently and provides plenty of space for applications. With GNSS accuracy of around one meter in open skies and five meters in tree canopy, the CT8X2 offers very capable GNSS positioning that far exceeds the accuracy of typical consumer devices.

“The performance increase of the CT8X2 gives users a very capable device in the field,” Draper said. “We were able to provide these advancements in performance and GNSS accuracy while maintaining our affordable price point.”

The CT8X2 offers users powerful functionality, a high-resolution screen, and powerful GNSS capabilities all in a sleek yet rugged design. Users can work hard and worry less with the CT8X2. The CT8X2 is now available for purchase.

To learn more about the CT8X2, visit our product page here or contact us here.

About Juniper Systems

Founded in 1993, Juniper Systems, Inc. is a leading manufacturer of ultra-rugged tablets, handheld computers, GPS receivers, and field computing solutions. Professionals utilize Juniper Systems’ innovative mobile computers in natural resources, utilities and public services, geospatial, agriculture, industrial, and military markets. In addition, the company’s HarvestMaster brand makes solutions for agricultural applications.

Juniper Systems is based in Logan, UT, and employs more than 160 people. It was twice recognized as one of the fastest-growing companies in the Beehive State and honored with awards for best compensation, work-life balance, and employee happiness among small and mid-sized U.S. companies by business research firm Comparably.

Visit us online at www.junipersys.com.