FDBusiness.com

Lakeland Dairies, one of Ireland’s leading farmer owned dairy processing co-operatives, has opened a €40 million technologically advanced milk powder plant at Bailieboro in County Cavan. This is Lakeland Dairies’ third milk drying plant at its Bailieboro processing centre.

The Bailieboro facility is among the most advanced milk powder plants in the world and one of the largest such plants in Europe. The site will now produce over 160,000 tonnes of milk powders and 50,000 tonnes of butter annually, which allows great flexibility in milk throughput and overall economies of scale for the food ingredients business.

Lakeland Dairies processes over 1.2 billion litres of farm produced milk annually into 240 value-added dairy foodservice products and food ingredients for export to over 80 countries worldwide.

The development is designed to ensure that the co-operative is well positioned to take advantage of all future market opportunities for its milk producers. The expansion saw the installation of a new 7 tonne per hour milk dryer and evaporators where total milk powder production capacity has now increased to 20 tonnes per hour. The plant has the highest levels of efficiency including heat recovery systems and its energy centre can also supply electricity back into to the national grid.

The investment has been supported by the Department of Business, Enterprise and Innovation through Enterprise Ireland. This is creating 85 new jobs across the Lakeland Dairies Group between now and 2019. Over 180 construction workers were employed by contractors during the building, installation and commissioning phases for the new facilities. With 2,400 dairy farmers supplying milk to the co-operative across 15 counties north and south, Lakeland Dairies now employs over 800 people.

Michael Creed, Minister for Agriculture, Food and Marine, comments: “International markets hold big growth potential for Ireland as a global exporter of high quality dairy food ingredients. With this impressive new facility, Lakeland Dairies will compete strongly in serving its existing long standing customers and will also access new markets. The new plant is a model of innovation and efficiency and is exemplary of the very high standards of food quality and production which our dairy industry is projecting across the world.”

Michael Hanley, chief executive of Lakeland Dairies, says: “Our strategy is to create long term competitiveness and sustainability for our milk producers and to meet the long term needs of our valued customers in the global food industry where we see constant demand for our products. We have created a culture of innovation and excellence across our entire organisation which will continue to drive the business forward. In particular, we are addressing opportunities in the areas of infant formulas, dairy proteins, food manufacturing and health related nutritional products, among other categories, where we are already a globally recognised leading supplier of powders.”

Orla Battersby, head of the Food Division at Enterprise Ireland, says: “Enterprise Ireland is delighted to support the development and expansion of the Lakeland Dairies Milk Powder Plant which will directly support innovation across the food and dairy sector and ultimately contribute to export growth. The development and expansion of the Lakeland plant is another important milestone in the growth of the Irish food industry, which is Ireland’s largest indigenous manufacturing sector. The opening of this new showcase plant reflects highly on the entire Irish dairy sector – pooling together innovation with best in class facilities which further leverages our strong international reputation in the sector.”