On Wednesday 2 September, Minister for Enterprise, Trade and Investment, Jonathan Bell, officially opened a major new Global Logistics Centre for Lakeland Dairies at its Pritchitts dairy foodservice manufacturing site in Newtownards, Co Down.

Pritchitts in Newtownards is a dairy foodservice arm of Lakeland Dairies, which is a farmer-owned dairy co-operative. It provides employment for over 200 people from the local community.

The new Global Logistics Centre was completed recently by Lakeland Dairies following an investment of €10m, supported by Invest Northern Ireland.

The opening was attended by the CEO of Lakeland Dairies, Michael Hanley, and the entire board of the co-operative, including chairman Alo Duffy. It forms part of a series of open days where hundreds of farmer milk producers and their families will tour the major new facility over the coming days.

Welcoming the development, Minister Bell said: “This new centre, supported by Invest NI, is among the most technically advanced global export facilities in Europe.

“The willingness by management and members to invest in this important technology is a clear statement of their intent to drive increasing export growth and to create a sustainable business model that will offer jobs and security throughout the dairy supply chain for many years to come.”

Using state-of-the-art technology, the Newtownards site has 12 different production lines making over 100,000 tonnes of dairy products and 700 million individual product units each year. These include ice cream mixes, UHT milk, milk portions, flavoured milks, added value dairy creams, powdered desserts, cappuccino toppings and ice cream powder.

The co-operative markets 170 products to 77 countries worldwide, exporting close to 100% of its entire production capacity to every corner of the globe.

Michael Hanley, CEO of Lakeland Dairies, said: “As a leading dairy processing co-operative, our mission is to create long-term sustainability for our milk producers through value-added processing and export-led growth. This requires the right economies of scale, the most competitive processing plants in the industry and the achievement of total efficiency across all of our operations. We are very pleased to acknowledge the expertise and support we have received from Invest NI for this flagship development in Newtownards.

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