New Butter Plant At Clandeboye

5 September 2002

New Butter Plant At Clandeboye

NZMP, the world's largest dairy ingredients organisation and one of Fonterra's two major business units, has successfully commissioned a new $26 million butter plant at its Clandeboye site, near Temuka in the South Island.

NZMP's General Manager Manufacturing - Southern, Mr Alan Bennett, said production had begun on 1 September and was being increased gradually. Butter produced at the plant would be packed for sale from within the next few days. When fully operational, from the end of September, the plant will be capable of producing 250 tonnes of butter per day.

The Clandeboye site is NZMP's largest South Island production facility, processing milk collected from farmers from North Canterbury to North Otago. When the butter plant is fully operational the total capacity at Clandeboye will be approximately 1.7 billion litres per year, processed into cheese, skim milk powder, anhydrous milkfat and butter.

Mr Bennett said the new butter plant would benefit the business by providing increased product mix options and improving the Clandeboye site's cream handling capability. "In practical terms, this means we will be able to adjust between production of butter and anhydrous milkfat at Clandeboye to take the best advantage of market conditions and customer needs," he said. "Meanwhile, the increase in cream capacity assists in handling the increasing quantities of milk received at Clandeboye."

Mr Bennett said the successful commissioning reflected solid performance by the project team, including company staff, project management consultants Babbage Consultants and the main contractor B. W. Murdoch. The new butter plant will employ 16 production staff, two laboratory staff and four extra stores staff. Similar plants are already used at four of NZMP's 25 production sites - in Te Awamutu, Takaka, Hawera and Morrinsville.

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