Irish dairy co-op Ornua has announced a $10m (€9m) investment to expand production capacity by an extra 15,000t at its cheese ingredients plant in Wisconsin, US. Ornua said the investment will add a further 22,000 sq ft of warehousing and cooling infrastructure to the site in Hilbert, Wisconsin, and increase production capacity by a further 30% at the plant to bring it to 60,000t per annum.

Ornua’s ingredients business in the US operates from two manufacturing sites at Wisonsin and Byron, Minnesota. The business specialises in producing customised, functional cheese solutions for US food manufacturing and food service.

Pederson said the US food industry had rebounded following the lockdown in April and May, and retail is still performing very strongly

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These cheese ingredients are used in everything from bakery to frozen food. Last year, Ornua’s Wisconsin site supplied enough cheese for 50m pizzas.

Speaking to the Irish Farmers Journal, president of Ornua Ingredients North America, Rick Pederson, said the investment would help the business keep pace with the growth of its blue chip customers in the food manufacturing space.

Pederson said the US food industry had rebounded following the lockdown in April and May, and retail is still performing very strongly. However, he said the immediate outlook in the US food industry is uncertain, given the rising number of COVID-19 cases across many states.

US cheese prices soared to an all-time high this week, as the price of block cheese surged above $6.600/t (€5,790/t) on the CME. Pederson said the price spike was down to very tight supplies of milk in the US, due to drought conditions.