Fonterra milk season peak falls

This season's milk production peak was hit on October 22, with Fonterra processing 86.9 million litres that day.
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As forecast, it was down about 5 per cent on last season’s October 19, 2014, peak of 89.6m. litres of milk.
Despite this, new processing plants helped Fonterra process a record amount of that 86.9m litres into value-added products, managing director global operations Robert Spurway said.
 
«Getting the most out of large volumes comes down to having the capacity to process every drop of our farmers’ milk while also striking the right balance between our ingredients and foodservice capabilities.
«This season we’ve been able to bring new plants online to drive greater value into both of these parts of the business,» he said.
A new dryer at Pahiatua and three plants at Edendale came online in August, while a new mozzarella plant at Clandeboye doubled capacity for one of the most in-demand foodservice products.
Further expansion is underway in Lichfield and Eltham to add a new milk powder dryer and slice-on-slice cheese lines respectively, with these on track to be up and running for the 2016 milk peak.
About 19 per cent of Fonterra’s liquid milk was made into consumer and food service products in the 2014-15 season ending July. The 4.5 billion litres of milk out of the total of 22.8b litres produced globally by Fonterra last season which went into more valuable consumer and food service products was up on the 3.9b litres the previous season (22.2b litres total).
ASB economist Nathan Penny said it was a positive signal to see more value being added.
«That’s the first step, the next is to see whether it will add to more profit, and at the moment we don’t know,» Penny said.
A Fonterra spokesman said the 5 per cent reduction in milk volume was across the whole season and factored in the impact  of El Nino, farmers culling their herds, less money being spent on supplements such as palm kernels.
The North Island generally peaked slightly earlier than the South because of the temperature difference.
One of the factors behind the credit ratings drop that Fitch Ratings recently gave Fonterra was its increased debt, partly in order to fund a capital expenditure programme.
But Fitch said that on the plus side Fonterra now had the capacity to deal with the increased milk supply.
 

SourceStuff

 

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Así lo expresó Domingo Possetto, secretario de la seccional Rafaela, quien además, afirmó que a los productores «habitualmente los ignoran los gobiernos». Además, reconoció la labor de los empresarios de las firmas locales y aseguró que están «esperanzados» con la negociación entre SanCor y Adecoagro.

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