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Two of the largest co-ops in the country have unveiled large-scale investments in the past week. Lakeland Dairies and LacPatrick have officially opened their respective new milk powder dyer facilities, valued at €40m each.
Last Thursday, Lakeland opened its latest dryer at the site in Baileborough in Co Cavan. This is the third dyer at the site, making it one of the largest powder processing sites in Europe.
The 7t/hour dryer will grow the co-op’s annual powder production to 160,000t and 50,000t of butter.
Lakeland has over 2,400 suppliers with an annual milk pool of 1.2bn litres and it has customers in 80 countries.
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Lakeland chair Alo Duffy said the new facility will future-proof the co-op.
“With this new facility, Lakeland Dairies will compete at the forefront of the global dairy food ingredients industry.
“This development will underpin our further progress in a rapidly changing world of international trade, where we have a heritage of over 120 years in dairy farming and an unstinting commitment to making the most excellent dairy products for all of our customers,” he said.
LacPatrick
Earlier this week, LacPatrick officially opened its new £30m (€40m at the time of investment) Dairy Technology Centre facility in Artigarvan, Co Tyrone.
Central to the facility is a 7t/hour dryer capable of processing up to 1.5m litres of milk per day, and which sits alongside two existing dryers which collectively could process around 1m litres of milk per day.
It takes the total capacity at the site to 2.5m litres per day.
With 990 suppliers and a total milk pool of 600m litres, 500m litres of which is collected in NI, the investment means LacPatrick now has 35% extra capacity.
In terms of the products coming from the new dryer, there are seven new products identified, four of which are up and running, with repeat orders.
Products are mainly targeted at both existing and new customers, in Africa, Asia and the Middle East.
The co-op has also been working on low/zero spore milk, which is of particular interest in the Japanese market, and used in coffee vending machines.
LacPatrick chief executive Gabriel D’Arcy said the new facility is part of its strategy in the wake of Brexit.
“This is one of the most exciting innovations and investments within the dairy sector and positions LacPatrick as one of the largest producer of dairy ingredients in the UK,” he said.
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