World's biggest milk dryer fires up Southland plant

The world's biggest milk dryer has been fired up at Fonterra's Edendale dairy factory in Southland, creating about 31 new production jobs.

The new dryer, the fourth on the site near Invercargill, can dry 100 litres of milk to create 10kg of whole milkpowder each second, spewing out 30 tonnes an hour.

It will produce about 135,000 tonnes of powder in a season.

The cooperative is due to take ownership of the $212 million plant on October 8, according to Fonterra's Edendale site operations manager Keith Mason. The company's domestic milk production jumped 7 percent last year to record levels and chairman Sir Henry van der Heyden has said its investment in the dryer is tangible evidence of confidence in continuing growth of milkflows.

"We're investing for the expectation for milk production to actually grow," he said. "For the medium to longer term, the next five to 10 years, we do expect volumes to keep increasing."

Nationally, Fonterra collected a record 1.281 billion kilograms of milksolids in the year to July 2009, up from 1.192 billion kg the previous season, and this year's milkflows are expected to be about the same.

At the peak of the season, Fonterra processes about 70 million litres a day, nationally, with 15.1m litres going though Edendale. About 4.4 million litres of that will be processed by the new dryer when it is running at full capacity.

Fonterra chief executive Andrew Ferrier has said the new dryer was built to handle expected growth in the South Island's milk supply, forecast to rise significantly by the 2012/13 season.

An estimated 800,000 cows from 800 farms in Otago and Southland will supply the Edendale factory this season, with the milk from an estimated 160,000 of those cows going to the new dryer.

Edendale has three other dryers, one producing seven tonnes an hour and two at 14 tonnes an hour, producing four varieties of powder (wholemilk, skim milk, buttermilk and fat-filled) for customers in Asia, North and South America, the Middle East and Africa.

It also makes cheddar cheese, mainly for Japan and the Middle East, anhydrous milkfat (AMF) for the USA, Canada and Europe, lactose and whey cheese for the New Zealand market, casein for Japan and North America, and whey protein concentrate.