Fonterra has announced it will spend $165 million this financial year to double the size of its Stanhope cheese plant and expand several other Australian plants.
$125m will be spent on its Stanhope cheese facility in northern Victoria which was rebuilt and reopened in August last year after being destroyed by fire in 2014.
Stanhope can currently produce 45,000 metric tonnes of product including cheddar, mozzarella, gouda, parmesan, pecorino, romano and ricotta. Fonterra said the investment will double the size of the cheese plant, increasing cheese production by a further 35,000 metric tonnes for a range of cheeses including cheddar and mozzarella.
A further $13.5 million will go to projects at Cobden where butter brand Western Star is made, and another $8.6 million will be spent at Dennington in western Victoria to install a new 25kg packing line for nutritional powders and efficiency improvements.
Fonterra will spend a further $7 million to expand its Darnum nutritionals plant in Gippsland and to install two robotic palletisers in Bayswater in eastern Victoria to improve efficiency.
The dairy giant will also spend $12 million in Tasmania to expand its Wynyard cheese plant and to increase lactose processing capacity at Spreyton.
“We have a clear strategy that is delivering sustainable returns," managing director of Fonterra Australia René Dedoncker said. "To create value, we need to invest to stay ahead of the demand curve. These investments support our aim to secure positive returns back to our farmers on both sides of the Tasman.”
Dedoncker said filling this expanded capacity would mean securing more milk supply. The company's total Australian milk intake is now two billion litres in Victoria and Tasmania.
“Our Australian milk pool has grown by 400 million litres this season, and with this new investment we plan to grow our milk further which we expect will come through growth from our existing farmers who wish to grow, coupled with milk from new suppliers joining Fonterra.”
The expansions will create around 36 jobs.
