Volac expands in the Far East

Volac International has entered into a joint venture to manufacture the animal feed ingredient, Megalac in Malaysia. Volac International has teamed up with the Malaysian company, PGEO group Sdn Bhd to build a new factory to make the Megalac product.

This will provide the production base for the company's expansion into Far Eastern markets in China, Japan, Taiwan, Korea and Thailand. Production is expected to begin within a year.

Megalac is an animal feed ingredient which is made by combining vegetable palm fatty acids with calcium. This protects the fatty acid from being broken down in the rumen, allowing it to pass into the lower gut where it can be digested more efficiently. Megalac is currently being manufactured at Volac's Liverpool facility, which has been part of the group since 1985. The vegetable fatty acids for this factory are imported from Malaysia.

The PGEO group are part of the Kuok group of companies and they own six edible oil refining operations in Malaysia. The group are also involved in flour milling, feed milling, and sugar production.

Volac is a private independent company which was set up 30 years ago. It's based near Cambridge and has two other factories in the UK as well as the one producing Megalac in Liverpool. Volac manufactures a range of milk replacers and animal feeds for calves, lambs and piglets at their facility in Felinfach in the UK.

Functional foods based on whey protein isolate are also made at this facility. At Port Talbot, the company's range of silage additives are manufactured.

Westbury lease deal agreed

Westbury Dairies limited, a new joint venture company owned by the farmer co-ops First Milk, Dairy Farmers of Britain and Milk Link, has agreed a new lease deal with the administrative receivers to United Milk.

Each of the co-ops is putting in an initial investment of between Stg£1 million and Stg£2 million and they have committed to supplying milk all year round. Milk will also be supplied by the 236 direct milk suppliers contracted to the company. Producers will receive a milk price based on the average published price of the three co-ops. New interest free loans will be given to producers who didn't get paid for milk supplied to United Milk before it went into receivership.

Westbury Dairies will contract process milk at the plant while the product will be owned and marketed by the co-ops.

The increased milk volume from the co-ops is critical for the future of the company. The Westbury facility is the largest of its kind in the UK and concentrates on producing intervention products. Before going into receivership it played an important role in providing an outlet for surplus milk in the UK which helped to put a floor under the price.

The farmer-owned United milk went into administrative receivership on 19 August. One of the joint receivers Stephen Oldfield said that the deal took longer to conclude than a normal receivership sale, because it was extremely complicated to construct and execute. The deal was announced on Tuesday.

Dairygold push branded food sales

Dairygold has extended the range of its food products that will be sold under its Shaws brand. The co-op's drive to increase sales under the Shaws brand is succeeding and now Dairygold are using it to market cheese. The Black Abbey, Red Cheddar and White Cheddar products are now being sold under the Shaws brand.

The co-op's marketing department has also undertaken a major rebranding exercise with the Galtee meats and Mitchelstown cheese brands. This involves redesigning the packaging to improve the impact on the supermarket shelves.

Galtee meats is the number two brand in meats for a range of products and Dairygold are increasing efforts to drive sales.

Similarly, Mitchelstown is the number two in the natural cheese market in Ireland. New re-sealable packs are part of the new look design which, it is hoped, will help to increase its market share.