Fonterra to close plants in Te Rapa and Waitoa to focus on ‘high-value products’

Fonterra will close a coal centre and specialty powder plant at its Waitoa site. Photo / Elaine Fisher

Fonterra is closing four plants at manufacturing sites in Hamilton and Waitoa.

In a statement, Fonterra director NZ manufacturing, Alan Van Der Nagel, said the decision was because Waitoa’s specialty powder plant and coal centre, and two powder dryers at Te Rapa were “aging assets.

“[They]... have served us well. But they are ... no longer efficient to operate. For these reasons, we have let our teams know of plans to close these plants.”

A Fonterra spokesperson said the closure would only affect the plants and not the factories as a whole.

The Waitoa and Te Rapa manufacturing sites would continue to operate.

Staff impacted by the plant closures had all been offered redeployment opportunities within the co-op.

“At Waitoa, the impacted operations will discontinue near the end of the year and 41 roles are impacted. We will continue to operate our specialty nutrition dryer and UHT plants at [this site],” Van Der Nagel said.

A Fonterra spokesperson said the decision to close the coal centre at Waitoa was related to Fonterra’s commitment to reducing its emissions.

At the end of last year, Fonterra opened a wood biomass boiler at its Waitoa site. This allowed the co-op to transition from using coal to using wood biomass to process milk.

Meanwhile, at the Te Rapa site, the two dryers would discontinue operations in May.

The spokesperson said this closure would impact “fewer than 10″ staff.

Fonterra's dairy factory at Te Rapa. Photo / Christine Cornege

Van Der Nagel said there were sufficient vacancies on site to redeploy the small number of impacted roles.

“These changes allow the co-op to ensure resource is geared towards high-value products.

“For example, we are increasing production capacity at Hautapu to meet growing demand for Lactoferrin [used in pharmaceuticals] and at Pahiatua [near Palmerston North] where we are gearing up to produce more caramelised milk powder for growing future demand.”

Danielle Zollickhofer is a multimedia journalist and assistant news director at the Waikato Herald. She joined NZME in 2021 and is based in Hamilton.

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