Lakeland to create 81 jobs at €36m milk powder plant

Lakeland Dairies Group is to create 81 jobs during the next five years with the €36m expansion of its milk powder processing operations at Bailieboro, Co Cavan.

Up to 180 construction jobs will also be created by contractors during the building, installation and commissioning phases for the facility.

Lakeland expects to boost its intake by 40% to over one billion litres by 2020, up from its annual intake of around 800m litres of farm-produced milk. Lakeland processes milk into a range of value-added dairy foodservice products and food ingredients which it exports to over 70 countries worldwide.

Lakeland Dairies’ group chief executive, Michael Hanley, said: “Growth in our global dairy ingredients business is being fuelled by consumer trends and developments in food industry sectors where we have access to key markets and customers worldwide.

“Over the past five years we have transformed our processing capabilities and have also underpinned our future export potential with new global logistics facilities.

“We see opportunities in infant formulae, dairy proteins and health-related nutritional products, among other categories, where we are a globally recognised leading supplier of the highest quality milk powders.” The expansion will see a new seven-tonne per hour milk drying facility installed at Bailieboro, where milk powder output capacity will reach 19 tonnes per hour.

Lakeland produces 80,000 tonnes of milk powders a year. This will rise to 130,000 tonnes on completion of the project in 2016.

The co-operative also produces 24,000 tonnes of butter on the same site which provides for considerable flexibility in milk production.

Construction is to start immediately. Yesterday’s event was attended by Jobs Minister Richard Bruton, Lakelands chairman Alo Duffy, CEO Michael Hanley, and Arts Minister Heather Humphreys.

Mr Bruton said: “Ireland’s food industry offers massive potential for regional employment, a focus of the Government’s 2015 Action Plan for Jobs.

“The removal of milk quotas later this year offers huge opportunities that we intend to exploit in a planned and strategic way in order to support jobs growth across every region in Ireland.”