Gongs for Fonterra's top sites

The Te Rapa site in Hamilton, Kauri, Northland and Studholme, South Canterbury were the big winners in the co-operative’s 16^th annual best site cup awards.

Te Rapa secured the best large site cup through their commitment to sustainability, safety, consistent quality, productivity and compliance performance.

Kauri received the best medium site cup for the second year in a row.

The site was awarded for its quality and productivity, as well as sustained health and safety and sustainability performance.

Studholme took out the win for the best small site cup due to their performance across safety, compliance and sustainability.

Alan Van Der Nagel, Fonterra’s director of New Zealand manufacturing, says this year’s awards are the perfect way to recognise success on the back of a challenging year.

“On top of the tight Covid-19 conditions we’ve seen in recent years, sites also faced ongoing disruptions to staffing levels due to the Omicron outbreak.

“This was quite a challenge, but it was good to see teams putting their heads together and supporting each other to get the work done.

“Despite these challenges, our sites still managed to process up to 79 million litres of milk per day during our peak season.

“These awards are a great opportunity to recognise the hard work our manufacturing sites are doing.”

Awards were handed out in 17 categories.

Environment Award

Maungataroto received the sustainability cup for delivering an “amazing result” from their Wetland Condensate recovery project, through which they are reducing water usage by up to 25%.

On top of this, they have significantly reduced waste to landfill. There is a strong sustainability culture on site, making them very worthy winners, Fonterra says.