Dairygold opens new state of the art Nutritionals Campus in Mallow
Dairygold’s €86 million Nutritionals Campus in Mallow was officially opened on Friday 22nd at an event attended by An Tánaiste and Minister for Business, Enterprise and Innovation, Frances Fitzgerald, European Commissioner for Agriculture and Rural Development Phil Hogan and Minister for Agriculture, Food & the Marine, Michael Creed.
Following the investment, the state of the art milk processing facility is capable of producing the full range of nutritional dairy ingredient powders in volumes of up to 1,750 tonnes/week.
The Mallow Nutritionals Campus is a key pillar of Dairygold’s Expansion Plan to support the growth ambitions of its 2,900 suppliers across the Munster region. In 2012, Members forecast to increase their milk production by over 60% by 2020. Their forecasts have become a reality. Almost three years ahead of schedule, milk volumes from Dairygold’s 2,900 milk suppliers are expected to exceed 1.3 billion litres this year – a 55% increase on the baseline milk supply volume. Milk supplies in 2017 are forecasted to be up 105 million litres on 2016. This increase alone is worth an additional €39 million for the Society’s dairy farmers.
Speaking about the new facility Dairygold Chief Executive Jim Woulfe said: “The Mallow investment delivers on the twin objectives of our Dairy Expansion plan. This world-class Nutritionals Campus not only caters for our members’ expanding milk production but it also puts in place the processing technology to expand our range of higher value ingredients for the adult and infant nutritionals sector.This in turn creates more value add for our increasing milk volumes.The Nutritionals Campus will be at the forefront of our Nutritionals growth agenda with further investment planned in the near future.”
Post quota dairy expansion has seen the creation of 112 full time jobs across the Dairygold organisation. The €86 million regeneration of the Mallow site has also had a positive impact on employment in the region. The development saw over 800 people employed through direct and indirect jobs linked to the project. It has also had indirect economic benefits allowing Dairygold suppliers to expand their milk production with the creation of additional jobs in farming and an increase in activity for businesses that supply goods and services to Dairygold.
James Lynch, Chairman, Dairygold said: “The opening of the new Nutritionals Campus is a milestone in our Society’s history. It is also testament to the support and ambition of our milk supplying members, without which this development would not have been possible. A crucial factor in Dairygold’s ability to invest and develop has been our milk producer Members’ forecasting which has given the Society visibility of milk supply volumes into the future.”
