Processors boost GHG credentials
Dairy's superpowers are lifting their game on proving greenhouse gas credentials.
French dairy giant Danone is doubling its infant formula production capacity in New Zealand.
Its subsidiary Danone Nutricia NZ is spending $25 million on a blending and packing 'mega facility' at its Airport Oaks plant in Auckland.
"The $25 million expansion of the Airport Oaks facility signifies the growing importance of our NZ operation as an important supply point for the domestic and Asia Pacific markets, and the growing demand for early life nutrition products in key markets," says Cyril Marniquet, NZ operations director for Danone Early Life Nutrition.
The Airport Oaks facility will include a new gravity blending tower and canning lines, in line with Danone Nutricia's world-class quality standards. It will also include an innovation centre to launch new products and packaging for the Asia Pacific region.
The Airport Oaks site investment also allows Danone Nutricia to employ more people as it prepares to meet the growing global demand for early life nutrition products; it employs 400 people in NZ.
The Airport Oaks site will continue to make Aptamil, Karicare and Cow & Gate ranges for domestic and international markets.
In NZ the company
has 60% share of the category.
The original NZ brand Karicare has a leading 46.6% share of all category sales in this market, growing year on year. Karicare and Aptamil are key brands for the Australian business, also growing share and sales in that market.
Danone has been expanding in NZ; in 2014 it acquired the Suttons and Guardians companies. This added a nutritional spray drying facility in the South Island and blending and packing facilities in Auckland.
Holstein Friesian excellence was front and centre at the 2025 Holstein Friesian NZ (HFNZ) Awards, held recently in Invercargill.
The work Fonterra has done with Ballance Agri-Nutrients Ltd, LIC and Ravensdown to save farmers time through better data connections has been recognised with a national award.
This past week has seen another round of negotiations between India and New Zealand to produce a free trade agreement (FTA) between the two countries.
Cautiously optimistic is how DairyNZ's regional manager for the lower North Island, Mark Laurence describes the mood of farmers in his patch.
The Infrastructure Commission has endorsed a plan by Chorus to expand fibre broadband to 95% of New Zealand much to the delight of rural women.
Questions are being raised about just how good the state of the dairy industry is - especially given that the average farmgate payout for the coming season is set to exceed $10/kgMS.
OPINION: Years of floods and low food prices have driven a dairy farm in England's northeast to stop milking its…
OPINION: An animal activist organisation is calling for an investigation into the use of dairy cows in sexuallly explicit content…