Dairy Dialog podcast 23: Gulfood - Vega Mancha, Union Dairy Company and Al Arz
It includes an interview with Maria Mercedes Esparcia, export director at Vega Mancha, a Spanish cheese company; Andrew Wellington, from Australia’s Union Dairy Company; and Zahi Anabtawi, chairman and general manager of Al-Arz Ice Cream Co. Ltd, based in Palestine.
We also have our weekly look at the global dairy markets with INTL FCStone.
Vega Mancha
Vega Mancha is composed of a group of Spanish cheese companies whose main objective is to spread the companies’ dairy products around the world.
The companies are Central Quesera Montesinos, Queserías Lafuente and Quesos Vega Sotuelamos.
Central Quesera Montesinos is located in Jumilla, the center of the PDO cheese of Murcia, and is currently the largest goat cheese company in Spain, as well as the first in Murcia.
Queserías la Fuente, located in Cantabria, offers processed cheese, melted, sliced and a wide variety of cheese formats. It has facilities in Asturias and Parma (Italy).
Quesos Vega Sotuelamos, located in the heart of La Mancha, is one of the main manufacturers of Manchego PDO cheese, and produces both industrial and artisan cheese. It specializes in cheeses made with sheep's milk.
Union Dairy Company
The Union Dairy Company has an annual processing capacity of 300m liters of raw milk and began production in 2017. Located in Penola – in Australia’s prime dairy region – its purpose-built plant is one of the newest of its kind in the southern hemisphere.
In 2016 The Midfield Group and global agricultural company Louis Dreyfus joined forces to create The Union Dairy Company, which began operation in 2017.
The UDC brand is the Union Dairy Company’s first and flagship brand. The UDC brand offers regular and premium grade powders made from Australian milk from free-range grass-fed cows.
Products include Whole Milk Powder (WMP) - High heat, Medium heat, Low heat, UHT medium heat, and UHT low spore medium heat.
The company also creates Skim Milk Powder (SMP) in High heat, Medium heat, Low heat, UHT medium heat, and UHT low spore medium heat variants.
It also supplies cream products such as thermalized cream, raw cream, butteroil, and anhydrous milk fat (AMF).
Al Arz Ice Cream Company
Palestinian company Al Arz started out in 1950, producing ice in order to cool water and store food, but has since evolved into the main frozen treats’ company in the country.
In 2007, Al Arz started the first step towards exporting, with Jordan its first destination. Two years later, Al Arz acquired the global HACCP food safety certificate, the first to do so of all of the ice cream and dairy producers in Palestine and Jordan.
The company has a production capacity of up to 8m liters of ice cream per month, and its products include dozens of single-serve ‘impulse’ ice cream products for stores, as well as take-home multi-packs, tubs, and 4.5-liter catering packs.
