Westland Milk Products has begun building the plant in its first venture into retail-ready liquid milk at the Izone industrial park. The long life product known as UHT milk for its ultra high temperature processing usually has a shelf life of six to nine months and is usually used in hot climates.
Commercial production is scheduled to begin early next year and the plant will be capable of packing more than 50 million litres of UHT milk and cream a year. The product will mainly be sold into China’s UHT market, where returns are high and growth prospects are strong.
Chief executive Rod Quin said Westland was entering its first venture into a branded liquid milk product for consumers.
Traditionally Westland had focussed on producing ingredient milk powders for the global market, which other companies used to produce consumer-ready products, he said.
«The UHT project is a key component of Westland’s strategy to continually shift more production capability toward high added-value market opportunities. This will flow through to improved returns for shareholders, as well as reducing Westland’s reliance on the volatile commodities market.»
Quin said Rolleston was selected as the plant’s site because of savings made from processing and packing milk supplied by its Canterbury shareholders locally instead of at the main Hokitika site. Transport costs would be reduced by the product avoiding crossing the Southern Alps again for export shipment from Lyttelton.
«Importantly, there is also more room for it at Rolleston than in Hokitika. The UHT plant will have a large footprint and the Hokitika site is constrained for further development space by the existing factory buildings and will be even more so once our new nutritional products dryer (D7) is completed later this year.»
UHT plant statistics: 12,000 litres processed per hour and 50 million litres per year for 200 million packs per year.
Source: Stuff