Record Milk At Peak

Fonterra has set a new record for the most milk processed in a single day. Commonly known as the peak day, the record was set last Wednesday, 27 October, when the co-operative’s 26 sites throughout the country processed 76.8 million litres of milk.

Gary Romano, Managing Director – Fonterra Trade and Operations, says the new record is three million litres up on last year’s record peak.

“It’s a real credit to our teams and our plants that we processed all the milk so smoothly.

“It was a slow start to the season with wet weather in the Waikato and Taranaki and snow in the South Island. However, this recent spell of fine weather has seen a sharp increase in production on-farm.

“The rough weather we had at the start and the sharp lift in milk production over the past few weeks has meant that there have been some cases where we have been late picking up the milk from our farmers. But overall our people have done a great job in difficult conditions.

“Since Fonterra was formed, we’ve increased our processing abilities by investing in new technology and plants such as ED4 – the most efficient powder plant in the world – to ensure we can keep ahead of milk production increases in an efficient and sustainable way.

“We’ve handled this growth while maintaining a strong focus on the quality of our products and the health and safety of our people and we’re setting internal quality benchmarks in a number of areas as we continue to focus on improving our performance.

Mr Romano said season-to-date, overall milk production was now slightly ahead of last year but, with the season only a third of the way through, it was too early to talk about actual production figures for the year.