Dale Farm bottles up international success

Dale Farm, Northern Ireland's leading dairy business, has opened a new best-in-class milk and cream facility at its processing plant near Ballymena.



The facility is the result of a £10million investment by Dale Farm and Nampak, supported by Invest Northern Ireland, and is part of an overall £39 million investment in Dale Farm's three local production facilities which was announced in 2010.



The new facility includes a state-of-the-art high speed milk and cream filling lines, a new inplant plastic bottle blow moulding facility operated by Nampak Plastics Europe Ltd and a new chilled distribution centre.

Dale Farm, owned by United Dairy Farmers, Northern Ireland's biggest dairy co-operative, also has processing operations in Cumbria, where it produces Loseley branded products, and Rowan Glen in Scotland, a leading yoghurt business. The company has gained a series of international awards for its cheddar cheese and butters.

In addition to a broad range of value-added dairy products, the company supplies milk powder and whey to developing markets such as China.



David Dobbin, Dale Farm's Group Chief Executive, said: "This major upgrade of this facility means that Dale Farm now operates one of the most modern dairies in the British Isles, ensuring that we can continue to compete successfully against international competitors.

"We are also doubling our cheese and whey products output at our Dunmanbridge plant near Cookstown in County Tyrone and further developing our Dromona butter and spreads facility at Cullybackey, also based near Ballymena.



"Our investment programme will enable us to develop our sales in more added value dairy products in domestic and export markets. As well as helping to improve the returns to local dairy farmers we have already created over 60 new jobs in Dale Farm and a further 26 jobs in Nampak's inplant bottle blowing operation."



The new Nampak Plastics Europe operation at Pennybridge introduces new processing technology to Northern Ireland, which will allow bottles to be filled with milk within one minute of manufacture.

Pictured: Enterprise Minister Arlene Foster pictured at Dale Farm's Pennybridge plant with David Dobbin, Dale Farm's Group Chief Executive.