Why cream cheese is important to Fonterra

Fonterra's milk processing plant at Darfield Canterbury. Photo / Supplied

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Cream Cheese Plant Manager at Fonterra Darfield, Matt Smith, chats with The Country Sport Breakfast’s Brian Kelly, about the co-op’s annual results released last month, along with why cream cheese is important to Fonterra.

Kelly, asked Smith, “Fonterra released its annual results last month, which showed a strong performance, particularly in the ingredients channel and Foodservice didn’t do so badly either. Could you share with us a little more about this result?”

“Ingredients and Foodservice did well in financial year 2023, and demand for cream cheese which is sold through both channels was really solid,” Smith said.

“Fonterra produces cream cheese both here at our Darfield plant just out of Christchurch and at Te Rapa, just out of Hamilton.”

“Could you tell us a bit more about cream cheese production at the Darfield site?” Kelly asked.

“The Darfield site produces cream cheese and has a couple of driers for making milk powder and the award-winning cream cheese plant which I look after,” Smith said.

“The site has a team of around 300 dedicated people.

“We bring in milk for the site from more than 1100 farms in the local area and each day the site can process up to 7.5 million litres of milk, that’s three giant Olympic-sized swimming pools of milk processed every day!”

Kelly exclaimed, “That is a lot of milk isn’t it!”.

“The cream cheese plant is relatively new, only being completed about five years ago,” Smith said.

“It produces up to 24,000 metric tonnes of cream cheese each year and just to put that in perspective, that’s equivalent to the weight of about 120 blue whales.”

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“When it comes to cream cheese consumption, are Chinese consumers enjoying it the same way as us Kiwis?” Kelly asked.

“Well, cream cheese is pretty much a new product in China, and it is consumed a bit differently,” Smith said.

“In New Zealand, we use cream cheese in baking or cooking, but in China, it’s consumed in other ways as well such as cheese lollipops and cream cheese over there is also used in beverages, such as tea macchiatos, and traditional pastry like moon cakes.

“One of the real key things at the Darfield plant is we have flexibility at the plant to adjust the consistency of cream cheese to meet customer preference.”