Open Country opens butter plant
When American retail giant Cosco came to audit Open Country Dairy’s new butter plant at the Waharoa site and give the green light to supply their American stores, they allowed themselves a week for the exercise.
As dairy farmers continue milking cows, Open Country Dairy will be processing milk and getting product to market.
“The well-oiled Open Country machine with all plans in place won’t be missing a beat,” says chief executive Steve Koekemoer.
“Demand for our high-quality products has remained robust over the past couple of months and it is certainly turning out to be a solid season for dairy.”
With New Zealand now past the peak months and global milk supply soft, Koekemoer expects pricing to remain at the elevated levels.
“The recent auction results have confirmed this view and it was once again good to see customers outside of China stepping up.
“More encouraging is the fact that we have spread our product mix and all our products are delivering outstanding returns.”
He points out that in the past many have seen OCD only as a whole milk powder (WMP) supplier.
“But over the last few years we have invested in diversification and are now offering other products like more cheese, skim milk powder SMP, anhydrous milk fat (AMF), cream and will add lactose and concentrated products in the near future.
“Having a basket of products to choose from certainly has its advantages to ensure we are always competitive and can extract maximum value from the market.”
