Why Fonterra accepted defeat in the dairy aisle
OPINION: Fonterra's sale of its consumer dairy business to Lactalis is a clear sign of the co-operative’s failure to compete in the branded consumer market.
FONTERRA PLANS a $32 million expansion of its slice-on-slice cheese capacity at its Collingwood St site in Eltham, Taranaki.
Slice-on-slice cheese is used extensively in quick service restaurants for products such as hamburgers and sandwiches. Work will start in early 2014 with expected completion by mid-2015. The expanded plant will deliver both increased capacity and improved processes to meet growth in global demand from Fonterra's foodservice customers.
Fonterra director of foodservice, René Dedoncker, says the investment demonstrates the co-operative's drive to grow its business in the high-value foodservice industry.
"Our foodservice business has grown 9% in volume over the past three years and the profitability of foodservice has increased 11% cent in the same period.
"We also achieved double digit growth in China where foodservice grew 28%.
"This investment in slice-on-slice cheese is in response to fast-growing demand throughout Australasia, Asia and the Middle East."
International growth in cheese is being driven by trends in eating out of home, particularly in emerging Asian economies where there is a continued shift toward more westernised diets.
Dedoncker says driving its foodservice business is one of Fonterra's seven strategic pathways and the cooperative had set itself ambitious growth targets over the next five years.
The foodservice category includes full and quick service restaurants, bakeries, cafes, hotels, airline catering facilities and other commercial kitchens.
NZPork has appointed Auckland-based Paul Bucknell as its new chair.
The Government claims to have delivered on its election promise to protect productive farmland from emissions trading scheme (ETS) but red meat farmers aren’t happy.
Foot and Mouth Disease outbreaks could have a detrimental impact on any country's rural sector, as seen in the United Kingdom's 2000 outbreak that saw the compulsory slaughter of over six million animals.
The Ministry for the Environment is joining as a national award sponsor in the Ballance Farm Environment Awards (BFEA from next year).
Kiwis are wasting less of their food than they were two years ago, and this has been enough to push New Zealand’s total household food waste bill lower, the 2025 Rabobank KiwiHarvest Food Waste survey has found.
OPINION: Sir Lockwood Smith has clearly and succinctly defined what academic freedom is all about, the boundaries around it and the responsibility that goes with this privilege.
OPINION: Should cows in NZ be microchipped?
OPINION: Legislation being drafted to bring back the controversial trade of live animal exports by sea is getting stuck in the…