Fraser Whineray on Fonterra's success with sustainability and shipping

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Fonterra's hard work on sustainability has paid off, as it's now a finalist in this year's Sustainable Business Awards.

The team at the co-op's Maungatūroto site in Northland has been working on a circular water saving initiative, which redirects water from a natural wetland back to be used on site.

"A lot of creativity" was used to tackle challenges that came up during the project, Chief Operating Officer at Fonterra Fraser Whineray said.

"You have to ensure the wetland's ecosystem remains strong, the food safety quality remains high and it doesn't interrupt the ability of the site to process milk," Whineray told The Country Sport Breakfast's Brian Kelly.

As a result, the site can now save up to 700,000 litres of water a day – which makes up 25 per cent of its total water use.

The site also reduced its reliance on the local water supply from the Kaipara District Council, which was important, due to recent drought in the region.

"All round it's a really neat project from the team up there and it deserves to be a finalist," Whineray said.

Meanwhile, the supply year has just ended for Fonterra, with the co-op shipping an impressive amount of product, Whineray said.

"We shipped a record actually this year of 2.59 million tonnes, which is just over 200,000 containers of nutrition to our overseas customers."

This was achieved despite the "challenging supply chain dynamics" of the past year, Whineray said.

"All of those supply chains choked up globally - and still are to a degree - but we've got some additional mitigation in place."

Whineray wanted to give a "big shout out" to Kotahi for thinking "creatively" when shipping came "off schedule".

Kotahi is Fonterra's supply chain collaboration with Silver Fern Farms, the Maersk shipping company and Port of Tauranga.

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The teams were dealing with shipping schedule integrity which had plunged from a long-term average of 75-80 per cent, to below 35 per cent in the year, Whineray said.

"They've done a great job and we've still got a fair bit of work to do to have a good result this year on the shipping front as well."

Fonterra's partnership with Kotahi and freight management company Coda Group had been "fundamental" to the co-op's shipping success, Whineray said.

"Every time ships and schedules changed, there's a huge amount of rework that has to happen to line up everything, so the port can come together and load the ship as quickly as possible and send it on its way."