Westland Milk Products Set To Invest In Hokitika Nutritional Plant Upgrade
Westland Milk Products is set to invest in a new state-of-the art high quality paediatric nutritional manufacturing plant in Hokitika, fast tracking the West Coast-based producer’s ability to satisfy customer demand and produce nutritional products at volume.
Westland Milk Products’ planned investment follows the successful completion of its reverse osmosis plant at Rolleston in Christchurch and recent capacity upgrade at Hokitika, both of which are on track to deliver projected targets for the 2011 season.
Westland Milk Products chief executive Rod Quin says, “We are delighted with the outcome of the Rolleston and Hokitika projects which were completed on time and budget and have positioned us well to take the next step in our growth phase.”
Further investment is a natural progression for the company which is operating in a high growth environment and whose customer base continues to demand more capability for nutritional ingredients.
“By further investing in our Hokitika base we plan to have the capacity to market our nutritional capability at scale before considering a dedicated plant,” Quin says.
The investment will help transform Westland Milk Product from a medium sized commodity dairy company into a growth oriented, value added and higher margin nutritional dairy products manufacturer.
The upgrade will include the building of a dedicated nutritional products batching facility, enabling Westland to produce large volumes of growing up milk powder, or GUMP, on demand. Westland will also implement a site-wide solution to deliver electronic traceability to the standards required to manufacture and sell nutritional products successfully.
Quin says prosperous middle classes in Asia and South America continue to drive global growth in the paediatric category. “Paediatric nutritionals are the fastest growing category in our market and continue to command ever increasing higher premiums.”
Westland’s existing customer base are some of the leading brand owners in the market for paediatric nutrition, worth approximately US$24 billion a year globally.
“New customer opportunities for paediatric products have already been identified among our customer base so once we have the capability to produce nutritional formulas at scale we will be in a position to take advantage of the market opportunity currently before us.”
Quin says the most exciting element of the paediatric nutritional market is its speed of growth and the fact that it is dominated by the Asian market, which is also home to Westland Milk Products closest and most lucrative customer base.
Demand for high quality nutritional products is also co-related to imported products following the high profile quality issues with Chinese milk based nutritional powders. “Post melamine the emphasis for paediatric nutritionals is on safety and because of our high quality reputation, we have a solid competitive advantage in this category.”
Work on the upgrade will begin October 2011 with the project completed for the 2012 season.
ENDS
For further information please contact:
Rod Quin Ph: 03 756 9832
Chief Executive Mob: 021 243 2291
Westland Milk Products
Jillian Talbot Mob: 021 493820
Reach Consulting
About Westland Milk Products
Westland Milk Products is an independent co-operative dairy company situated in Hokitika on the West Coast of the South Island. The company's focus is the production of high quality nutritional dairy products, together with milk powders, milk fat and milk protein products.