Gina Rinehart set to mine infant formula boom

Mining billionaire, Gina Rinehart, is poised to plough $500 million into the Chinese infant formula market through her dairy venture, Hope Dairies.

Hope Dairies will acquire about 5000 hectares of farmland in Queensland's south to produce about 70 to 75 per cent of its own milk, and will build a processing plant in Mary Valley with production to begin in the second half of 2016.

The venture aims to produce as much as 30,000 tonnes of formula a year, and the new facility will also process UHT milk. Australia currently produces around 70,000 tonnes of formula a year, according to Dairy Australia.

According to a Bloomberg report, the dairy will also use labelling technology capable of linking each package of powder right back the specific animal that produced the milk it was made from.