Westland Milk Products Expansion a SIGNIFICANT MILESTONE Just days after being officially opened, the Westland Milk Products’ $40m ultra-high temperature plant in Rolleston has received “substantial orders” for its liquid milk. The plant, officially opened by Food Safety Minister Jo Goodhew, represents the company’s first foray into producing and exporting liquid milk, and has been described as a “significant milestone in Westland’s strategy to move away from the volatile and oversupplied bulk dairy ingredients market” by the company’s chief executive Rod Quin. “Our focus is now on producing high-profit, added-value products for the top end of the market,” he says. While global dairy prices are unlikely to bounce back soon for products such as bulk milk powder – and so continuing to provide poor returns back to shareholders – the high value products are a growing and more profitable market, Quin says. “This is especially the case in China, which is continuing to experience growth in its middle classes,” he says. “These people are educated and have disposable incomes; they have high expectations around the quality, safety and health properties of dairy products they buy. Westland can meet these expectations, which means the future for these products is more secure and more likely to raise and stabilise returns to shareholders.” The UHT cream produced at the new plant also gives Westland the capacity to sell into the Chinese food service/ bakery market. Chinese consumer interest in western style foods, including bakery goods, is seeing a growth in demand for whipping cream for a variety of bakery treats and desserts. “For both UHT milk and cream,” Quin 26 MAY 2016 says, “we have invested in a considerable amount of research to ensure we have the right combination of high functional performance, quality and taste, which will be the key to winning in this category. Already we have had glowing reports back from China that we are performing very well in taste evaluations.” Quin says that Westland’s move into PACKAGING CAPABILITY: • 1 litre Tetra Slim Brik packaging with Helicap, 8000 packs per hour • 250ml Tetra Prisma packaging with telescopic straw, 24,000 packs per hour • Bulk Milk (bag in box format, 5 l to 1000 litres) between 3000 and 9000 litres per hour value-added products is already adding nearly 20 cents per kilo of milk solids to shareholder payouts. “We are on target for that proportion to grow substantially as our recent initiatives – including the recently completed $114 million nutritionals dryer in Hokitika and now the UHT plant in Rolleston – come into full production.” Westland has also recently redesigned UHT FACT SHEET UHT PROCESSING CAPABILITY: • White Milk up to 14000 litres per hour Formulated • Whipping Cream up to 9000 litres per hour UTILITIES BUILT: • Purpose built processing/packaging area, and utilities building • 3.6 MW LPG boiler • 75 kW air compressor • 600 m^3 per day effluent processing capacity, with real time, online monitoring CREAM MILK STAFF: • Total number of new roles recruited 10 • The plant will employ 39 in total when running 24/7 Budget: $40 million TIMELINE 24 March 2015 Ground broken 7 December 2015 First UHT milk and cream produced 15 February 2016 Chinese Country Listing granted A week later First commercial production starts Expecting to launch product in China - June 2016 DAIRY SPECIAL
FT-May16
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