Irish Dairy Board opens €12.7m ingredients plant in Britain

THE Irish Dairy Board (IDB) yesterday opened the new Adams Food Ingredients (AFI) manufacturing centre in Leek, Staffordshire, England.

The €12.7 million, 65,000 sq ft powder blending production facility — which incorporates an innovation centre — will help the board develop specific dairy ingredient solutions and formulations.

The board is investing €70m on a five-year capital development programme for the British market, which comprises 62m consumers.

Stressing the strategic importance of Britain as a base from which to grow Irish dairy exports, board chairman Vincent Buckley said: “The commissioning of the AFI facilities provides a platform for adding value to Irish dairy exports in the years ahead and will allows us to lead the way in best in class customised ingredients solutions.”

The facility will be critical in driving exports and to meeting the growing demand from food manufacturers for high quality dairy-based ingredients.

The plant is dedicated to developing customised dairy ingredient solutions. It complements the board’s cheese pre-packaging plant, also based in Leek, which is the largest pre-packer of cheese to the British retail sector.

Board chief executive, Kevin Lane, said: “This investment provides the Irish dairy industry with further market opportunities to meet the growing demand from food manufacturers for high quality dairy ingredients.

“Our purpose-built innovation centre allows us to work more closely with food manufacturers in developing specific formulations. This investment underpins our commitment in building routes to market for Irish dairy exports and is in line with our ingredients strategy of adding value.”

This facility in Leek will strengthen AFI’s position in the British market as a leading specialist of dairy-based food formulations. Its purpose-built innovation centre will apply the most advanced technology in specialist dairy applications.

It will offer customers in Britain a wider range of formulations and customised premix solutions, and give greater flexibility to produce a range of packaging formats to meet specific customer needs.

The innovation centre will enhance AFI’s ability to add value to dairy ingredients and will provide a platform to develop more advanced specialist applications in partnership with food manufacturers.

The new facility will employ 50 people.