2010 National Australia Bank agribusiness awards have recognized New Zealand multinational dairy co-operative Fonterra’s Australian arm as the Exporter of the year.
Earlier this month, Fonterra, world’s largest dairy exporter, was also honored at the 2010 Governor of Victoria Export Awards in the agricultural exporter category.
The company’s Australia Managing Director, Simon Bromell observed, “The business has made a number of strategic investments, such as our recent $A40 million upgrade of our Darnum Park manufacturing facility which now supplies infant formula into the East Asian market.”
He revealed that the Fonterra Ingredients collected about 20 per cent of Australia’s total milk production each year and exported over 100,000 tonnes dairy products to key markets in Asia and the Middle East.
“This milk powder plant in Gippsland, Victoria, recovers and recycles water through the manufacturing process, cleaning up water extracted from the milk to save about 550,000 liters water a day,” Bromell informed.
He also mentioned that in spite of challenging farming conditions during recent seasons, the dairy processing giant’s over 1,000 workforce in Australia as well as the farmer suppliers did a commendable work by continuing to supply high quality raw milk.
Bromell hopes that the company makes “the most of opportunities to continue to grow dairy exports in coming years.”
