Up to 700 suppliers, customers and other industry stakeholders are due to visit the new LacPatrick Dairy Technology Centre in Artigarvan on Tuesday and Wednesday to mark the official opening of the facility.

Central to the £30m (€40m) investment is a new 7t per hour dryer capable of processing up to 1.5m litres of milk per day, and which sits alongside two existing dryers which collectively could process around 1m litres of milk.

It takes the total capacity at the site to 2.5m litres per day.

With a total milk pool of 600m litres, 500m litres of which is collected in NI, the investment means LacPatrick now has enough processing capacity in NI to process all the milk collected there.

Over 500m litres

In fact, with the new dryer capable of processing over 500m litres annually, it leaves LacPatrick with significant spare capacity.

It is changed times from the last few years when the co-op struggled to process all its milk during peak months.

The new facility is also notable in the context of Brexit, especially if there are issues with moving milk across the Irish border after the UK leaves the EU

In terms of the products coming from the new dryer, the focus is on adding value, with seven new products identified, four of which are up and running, with repeat orders.

That includes a new instantised milk powder which can be reconstituted using water and sold as liquid milk.

The product is mainly targeted at both existing, and new customers, in Africa, Asia and the Middle East.

The co-op has also been working on low/zero spore milk, which is of particular interest in the Japanese market, and used in coffee vending machines.

Other future developments could include a move into the infant formula market. The technology is in place within the new facility to produce high-specification powder.

Exciting innovation

Speaking at the official opening, LacPatrick chief executive, Gabriel D’Arcy said: “This is one of the most exciting innovations and investments within the dairy sector and positions LacPatrick as one of the largest producer of dairy ingredients in the UK.”

The new facility took 18 months to build and has created an additional 20 highly-skilled technical posts within LacPatrick, most of which will be based at Artigarvan. More than 70 people are now employed at Artigarvan.

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