The custom built facility at the Cheshire based college will be used by Project Eden, a new training programme, funded by the Northwest Development Agency, to improve skills in the dairy industry.
Supported also by Dairy UK and leading dairy processors like Arla, Dairy Crest and Robert Wiseman, Project Eden provides a foundation degree level dairy qualification for dairy processing and manufacturing personnel.
Tetra Pak CPS has worked with Reaseheath in recent months to decide on what equipment should be in place to give students the best learning opportunities.
Equipment will include a highly automated raw milk offloading, storage and distribution system. To demonstrate industry best practice while minimising operational costs to Reaseheath College, Tetra Pak CPS said a low throughput milk separation, automatic inline standardising, partial homogenising and pasteurisation plant will be installed.
A low throughput highly flexible mix, pasteurisation and ageing/incubation process plant for processing various milk products, yogurts, custard and ice cream is also being supplied. The purpose of this is to allow tomorrow’s generation of dairy industry managers to understand the basics of food processing in a proactive learning environment.
Tetra Pak CPS sales manager, Tony Casey, said: “This training initiative gives people joining the industry and those already in it the ability to use equipment within the environment of a product development and training facility, which will allow people to learn from their mistakes.
“The learning opportunities that Reaseheath will be providing are excellent and we look forward to getting the project up and running with them.”