Dairygold welcomed a group of over 800 members and agricultural students to its dairy processing facilities in Mitchelstown last week, on Tuesday 14th and Wednesday 15th.
The Dairygold members and students were invited to the attend the guided tours providing an insight into the operations of both the Castlefarm Dairy Ingredients Campus and the Clonmel Road Cheddar Cheese Facility, as well as trade stands with information from around the Society.
“We were delighted to invite members to our Mitchelstown site tours, providing them with an opportunity to see first-hand the facilities and learn how their milk is transformed into world-class dairy products,” said chairperson, Pat Clancy.
“We were very proud to host agricultural students from across the country, offering them a chance to see the scale and innovation behind some of the country’s leading edge processing infrastructure. Our tours have been a great opportunity to further develop the partnership between the Co-Op and our members.”
‘STRENGTHENING’ CONNECTIONS
The Clonmel Road Cheddar Cheese facility adjoins Dairygold Headquarters and is home to the largest single-line cheddar plant in Europe, with a capacity to process 13.5 million litres of milk weekly into circa 1,500 tonnes of cheddar, with an annual output of 50,000 tonnes.
The Castlefarm Dairy Ingredients Campus processes approximately 11 million litres of milk and 25 million litres of whey weekly into a range of dairy ingredients including milk powders, casein and whey ingredients. The facility also pumps 45m litres of cream, of its total supply of 70m litres, directly to Ornua Kerrygold Park located next door to the facility, via pipe, to make Kerrygold Butter. The site operates on a 24 / 7 basis, receiving milk from 60 to 80 tankers daily.
Chief executive, Michael Harte added: “Bringing members into the heart of our operations strengthens the connection between the Co-Operative and our suppliers. These tours reinforce the essential role that our members play in the journey from farm to factory and right through to delivering world-class ingredients to our many global customers. These tours also demonstrated the progress Dairygold is making to substantially reduce emissions from its processing operations for their long-term sustainability.”
Castlefarm is also home to Dairygold’s water recovery programme and anaerobic digestor (AD). Introduced in 2019, the water recovery programme uses reverse osmosis technology to recover and polish 3 million litres of water daily, which would have previously gone to waste.
Dairygold’s on site anaerobic digestor treats all waste from both of Dairygold’s Mitchelstown sites to produce a biogas which supplies over 6% of the energy required to run the processing site. The AD plant is helping Dairygold achieve its ambitious 2030 target to reduce carbon emissions by 35%.
Dairygold would like to thank all our visitors and also the Dairygold team who worked tirelessly to ensure the site tours were a great success.
