First Milk announces £12.5m investment in UK cheese and whey facilities
This includes £9m ($12.5m) being invested at its Lake District Creamery in Aspatria, Cumbria, with a further £3.5m ($4.9m) being invested at its Haverfordwest Creamery.
The Lake District Creamery will see new high-capacity cheese blockformers installed, as well as new water, milk, cream and whey handling processes.
This marks the fourth stage of a multi-year investment totaling around £14m ($19.5m) at the Lake District site since 2019, which has seen upgrades including a new rapid-chill store and improvements to milk-processing equipment.
The investment at the Haverfordwest Creamery will see a new chilled-water plant delivered, as well as an upgrade to the whey process. This comes on the back of an £8m ($11.1m) investment in the Haverfordwest site, completed last year, which included a new cheese tower, separators, additional milk silos, as well as the installation of a combined heat and power plant.
Overall, the £30m ($41.8m) investment over the last three years will increase the processing capacity of both sites by more than 20%.
Shelagh Hancock, chief executive, said, “We are committed to investing in our processing facilities to continuously drive operational efficiency, product quality and sustainability. This investment program will unlock additional capacity, whilst helping us further enhance our award-winning product quality. What’s more, this capital spend enables us to reduce energy and water use, helping us to meet our ambitious First4Milk environmental targets and reinforcing our commitment to sustainable dairy.
“Including these new projects, we will have invested around £30m in our cheese production sites since 2018, ensuring our business is resilient and well-placed to meet the growing demand from our customers across the world, helping us to further improve the returns to our farmer members for the long-term.”
