Fonterra takes big slice of pizza market

Fonterra’s Clandeboye site has ramped up its cheese production with its third mozzarella line. This makes the Timaru region the Southern Hemisphere’s largest producer of natural mozzarella cheese, and will enable it to make enough cheese for over half a billion pizzas a year.

The dairy cooperative already tops around 50% of the pizzas in China, but the plant will help the company further expand its market presence. An increasing demand for Western food doubled pizza sales in China 2010–15, and it is expected that Asia’s cheese consumption will reach 1.67 billion tonnes by 2020.

Fonterra GM Marketing Global Foodservice Susan Cassidy said, “The new plant will double the site’s production of mozzarella — the world’s most popular variety of cheese, topping more than 80% of pizzas in Australia, China, South East Asia and the Middle East. We’re excited to have a slice of this market and are looking forward to that slice growing.”

The $240 million plant was built in under two years, and helps the company reduce the time it takes to produce cheese from months down to hours.

“We’re focused on getting more value from every drop of our farmers’ milk. With the opening of this new mozzarella plant and recent expansion of our Darfield site, we’re able to produce even more higher returning products. That’s good news for our farmers and the communities they live in,” said Robert Spurway, Fonterra Chief Operating Officer Global Operations.

MP for Rangitata Andrew Falloon, Timaru Mayor Damon Odey, Process Operator Shannon Biggs, Process Operator Paula Eddy, Process Operator Pene Hammond and Cheese Plant Manager Chris Turner.

It promotes the Timaru district as a major food hub in New Zealand and a growing exporter to the rest of the world, according to Mayor Damon Odey. The plant has also opened up a number of new job opportunities, with Fonterra announcing in February that 111 workers will work on the site’s third mozzarella plant.

“More and more people are seeing the appeal of provincial New Zealand, and investments like this underline that people can move to Timaru District and get unmatched job, housing and lifestyle options,” said Odey.

Image credit: ©stock.adobe.com/au/MaksimShebeko