Cool technology for icecream plant

A $10 million icecream manufacturing plant is to be built in Palmerston North.

Kapiti Fine Foods expects construction on the Kelvin Grove plant to be completed by September.

The company says the plant will be the first in Australasia to use United States technology that allows icecream to be produced at a lower temperature, ensuring better and more consistent products.

Chief executive Greig Shearer said yesterday investment in the new plant and advanced manufacturing technology would future-proof Kapiti's icecream business.

"This development will place Kapiti at the forefront of innovation and up with the best icecream-makers in the world," he said.

"It is a major development for our brand, which is already marketed internationally, and it will give us the ability to meet our growing number of orders.

"We are operating 24 hours a day but we cannot meet customer demand."

Work is ready to begin on the icecream plant next month and it will have a capacity to produce at least eight million litres of icecream a year.

A "corridor" link between the plant and a new cool-store on the same site is scheduled to be operating early next year.

Kapiti Fine Foods was established in 2003 with the merger of United Milk and Kapiti Cheeses. Today the company's premium dairy products include cheese, milk and icecream, with total sales of more than $60 million.

- NZPA