Fonterra to expand UHT facility in Waitoa, New Zealand

Dairy co-operative Fonterra is adding a new production line at its UHT facility in Waitoa, New Zealand.

The company previously planned an additional production line that was scheduled in 2018, but with the growing demand for the UHT products, it has brought the project forward and the new production line is set for completion next February.

The company anticipates that with the addition of the new production line at Waitoa UHT facility, it will be able to produce an excess of 40 million cartons of whipping cream per annum. Fonterra is investing NZD12m ($8.7m) to add this new production line.

Fonterra global foodservice director Grant Watson said: “For foodservice products, we build capacity based on secured customer orders. The fact we have needed to bring the project forward is a good sign of dairy’s growing popularity in China and points to the strength of our teams in market who are identifying that demand and converting it into sales.”

Fonterra global operations chief operating officer Robert Spurway said: “This new line enables us to expand our operations to send more of our farmers milk to higher value products and keeps us on track to meet our ambition of foodservice becoming a NZD5bn ($3.6bn) business by 2023.”

Spurway also said that the new line will commence its commercial operations by next March and bring the site’s total UHT capacity up to 112,000 packs an hour.

The new line will be at full capacity by next April and create 14 full-time jobs at the site.