Fonterra: Taranaki update with regional head Nicola McCarthy

File photo / Mark Mitchell

Content brought to you by Fonterra

It’s all go for Fonterra in Taranaki, as the co-op scooped up accolades at the Champions of Cheese Awards, celebrated its Whareroa site’s 50th anniversary, and won big at the Dairy Industry Awards.

The Champions of Cheese Awards took place earlier this week and coincided with International Cheese Day.

More than 250 cheeses were assessed by a panel of expert judges at the awards and the co-op enjoyed excellent results, Fonterra regional head Nicola McCarthy told The Country Sport Breakfast’s, Craig Cumming.

“Our Kāpiti and Mainland cheeses were among the favourites, so, they took home 39 medals, including 11 golds.”

Eltham was regarded as New Zealand’s “cheese capital”, as the product had been there made for over 100 years, McCarthy said.

“Cheese is a big deal for us here in Taranaki.”

Fonterra was running a competition for its farmers to win some of this award-winning cheese and McCarthy encouraged them to check out how to enter the draw on the My Co-op app.

Luckily, non-farmers can also win cheese by taking a look at Fonterra’s Instagram page.

Meanwhile, the co-op’s Whareroa site, near Hawera, marked its 50th birthday with a friends and family day last week.

The doors were opened for farmer shareholders, and current and former employees, as well as the wider public, McCarthy said.

“It actually included some of those people who had built the site back in the day- all up they had about 350 visitors go through - it was a great day.”

Powder and cream plant tours were available, and there were two new Fonterra tankers at the celebration.

Whareroa is one of the co-op’s largest sites, processing around 12 million litres of milk every day and making up roughly a fifth of Fonterra’s New Zealand production.

More than 1000 people worked there and the products they made were exported to more than 85 markets globally, McCarthy said.

Listen below:

“So it was awesome to be able to show a little bit of what we do there every day.”

The regional Dairy Industry Awards also took place last week and Fonterra enjoyed success here as well, McCarthy said.

“We won all three of the major titles there, so, we’ve had really promising results ahead of the National Finals that are going to be held in May.”

McCarthy said it was great to be able to celebrate Fonterra’s farmers and the work they put in to build stronger and more resilient businesses.

“We’re hugely proud of them, and one last thing I’ll say that I love about this role is helping to share the story of the good work that they’re doing out there on-farm.”

Also in today’s interview: McCarthy explained more about her background, her previous roles at the co-op and what she enjoyed most about being Fonterra’s regional head for Taranaki.