DAIRY giant Fonterra will invest $120 million in building a state-of-the-art cheese plant at its Stanhope factory in Victoria.
The new facility will replace the hard cheese plant, which was destroyed by fire in December 2014, with a larger, modern facility that will produce cheese for Australian consumer, foodservice and export markets.
Construction of the new plant will begin next year, and is expected to be completed in 2017.
In a statement, Fonterra Oceania managing director Judith Swales said the new facility will be able to produce 45,000 million tonnes of cheeses each year including parmesan, gouda and mozzarella - an increase of 15,000 million tonnes on the previous plant.
“As the branded market leader in the A$1.95 billion retail cheese category, with Bega, Mainland and Perfect Italiano commanding 23 per cent market share, the new plant will supply our Australian consumer and foodservice businesses, and export markets," Ms Swales said.
“It will leverage our footprint in 100 markets and also the recent free trade agreements with China, Japan, and Korea.
“The new cheese plant is an important part of our multi-hub strategy, which sees our Australian business play to its ingredients strengths in cheese, whey and nutritionals complemented by our consumer and foodservice businesses.
"It will provide whey to our Darnum and Dennington plants, which are at the core of our growing Australian nutritionals business.
”Importantly, the new plant will require significant growth of the local milk pool by 2020, and demonstrates Fonterra’s commitment to growing the industry long term. It means our local farmers can be assured of the future of dairy in northern Victoria."
The project is being supported by the Victorian government through its Regional Jobs and Infrastructure Fund.