Ornua Opens State-of-the-art Cheese Facility in Spain
Ornua, Ireland’s largest exporter of Irish dairy products, has officially its new, €30 million, state-of-the-art cheese production facility at Ávila in Spain. The new facility has been built on the former Ornua cheese manufacturing site, opening two years after the site was destroyed by a devastating fire. The 35,000-tonne mozzarella and pizza cheese facility, with plans to increase to 70,000-tonne, greatly enhances Ornua’s pizza cheese making capacity and capability securing its position as a world leading pizza cheese supplier. Ornua supplies enough cheese for over 100 million pizzas each year.
The new cheese facility at Ávila is in line with Ornua’s growth strategy of investing in world-class strategic production facilities to secure long term returns for Irish dairy farmers.
The reopening of the Ávila facility also marked the creation of Ornua Ingredients Europe which brings Ornua’s Spanish and UK Ingredients businesses together. The new division is a leading supplier of high quality and nutritious cheese and dairy powder ingredients. Supplying over 75,000-tonnes of added value ingredients to food manufacturing, QSR and pizza customers, Ornua Ingredients Europe generates strong returns for Irish dairy farmers.
The rebuild of the facility, which employs over 120 people, included a major expansion and processing technology upgrade. As a result, the Ávila facility is now equipped to play a major role in Ornua’s growth strategy of diversifying its product portfolio and building scale: reinforcing Ornua’s position as a major supplier of mozzarella and pizza cheese blends for both European and global pizza chains.
At the forefront of the latest cheese processing technology, the Ávila site features a R&D Centre of Excellence with a pilot plant and innovation kitchen dedicated to developing the next generation of pizza cheese and cheese ingredients for the $130 billion global pizza market. Its technology provides a wide selection of mozzarella and mozzarella-based cheese blends which deliver great flavour, an excellent melted texture, superb coverage and stretch and an outstanding cooked appearance. It also features innovative Individual Quick-Freezing capability, an in-line cooling system and the latest technology to produce pizza cheese ropes for the growing ‘stuffed crust’ sector of the market.
John Jordan, chief executive of Ornua, says: “This major investment will play a key role in enhancing our cheese ingredients capacity and capabilities. It will reinforce our position as a leading, large scale supplier of high-quality dairy ingredients to many leading Spanish, European and global food manufacturing and food service customers. Our new Avila R&D Centre of Excellence becomes the tenth innovation centre in our international network, which will ensure that Ornua has the capability to support our customers at the forefront of the rapidly changing dairy ingredients market.”
Led by newly appointed managing director Joan Bombardo, Ornua Ingredients Europe incorporates Ávila and Ornua’s UK Ingredients businesses, giving it a turnover in excess of €300 million; four well-invested processing and NPD facilities and 600 experienced and committed staff. Headquartered at its Nantwich UK facility, Ornua Ingredients Europe will have the scale and resources, combined with the agility and flexibility, to identify and meet the ever-changing needs of its customers and their consumers.
