February 10, 2015
 

Lakeland Dairies invests US$41 million to expand milk powder processing

Lakeland Dairies Co-operative Society will invest US$41 million to expand its milk powder processing operations in Bailieboro, County Cavan, Ireland.

This was announced by Richard Bruton TD, the Irish Minister for Jobs, Enterprise and Innovation.

The investment is supported by the Department of Jobs, Enterprise and Innovation via Enterprise Ireland.

With the funding, a new seven-tonne/hour milk drying facility will be established at Bailieboro where total milk powder production capacity will increase to 19 tonnes/hour. The expansion will also create 81 jobs across the Lakeland Dairies Group over a five-year period.

"Ireland's food industry offers massive potential for regional employment, which is a major focus of the Government's 2015 Action Plan for Jobs", said Bruton. "The removal of milk quotas later this year offers huge opportunities that we intend to exploit in a planned and strategic way in order to support jobs growth across every region in Ireland."

One of Ireland's leading farmer-owned dairy processing co-operatives, Lakeland Dairies processes over 800 million litres of farm milk annually into a range of products that are exported to over 70 countries.

Following the abolition of milk quotas this year, the annual milk supply to Lakeland Dairies is expected to increase by some 40% to over 1 billion litres by 2020.

Currently, Lakeland produces 80,000 tonnes of milk powders yearly, and this could rise to 130,000 tonnes after the completion of the Bailieboro expansion in 2016, according to its projections.  

The co-operative also produces 24,000 tonnes of butter in the same site.