Local community at Fonterra Lichfield information day

Local community turns out at Fonterra Lichfield information day

Hundreds of people from South Waikato attended Fonterra Lichfield’s community information day to hear about progress with the site’s new dryer today.

The Co-operative’s local farmers and employees joined the community to check out the recent developments, hear about the jobs on offer and sample some of the site’s famous cheese.

Last year Fonterra began work on the new high efficiency milk powder dryer and supporting infrastructure at Lichfield and has made great progress over the past six months.

Progress includes the completion of significant earthworks to level the site, the pouring of 10 Olympic sized swimming pools’ worth of concrete and, more recently, erecting concrete columns and panels.

The expansion will create more than 70 jobs, in addition to the hundreds created during the construction phase.

Fonterra Lichfield Operations Manager Samuel Mikaere says it was great to share an update with the community as well as talk about the job opportunities it will create.

“We’ve been in the area for 20 years now and it’s important to us that, whenever we can, we open our doors and show how we’re bringing dairy to life in the region.

“It was fantastic to have some of our local farmers on-site to help us host the public and share their farming experiences.”

Once the new dryer is complete in 2016 it will be capable of processing 4.4 million litres of milk per day, which will more than double the site’s current processing capacity.

Fonterra Managing Director Global Operations Robert Spurway says efficiency in all aspects of the new dryer’s operation will allow Fonterra to add the most value to the Co-operative’s highest volume products.

“The new dryer at Lichfield allows us to take advantage of our strength in milk supply in one of the country’s most concentrated dairy regions,” says Mr Spurway.

“That scale enables us to keep milk flowing through these large, high-efficiency dryers, lowering our cost of production, increasing efficiency and adding value to every drop of our farmers’ milk.”

ENDS

© Scoop Media