Pahīatua Fonterra open day provides a look at operations

Fonterra Pahīatua held an open day for staff and stakeholders, giving them a guided tour of facilities and some insight into operations.

It’s not often a local business gives people an inside look at operations but Fonterra’s Pahīatua site offered that last week.

Farmers, staff and stakeholders got a guided tour of the facilities, which included plants 1, 2 and 3, the distribution centre and wastewater treatment plant, as well as others and the Bush Telegraph was invited along on one tour.

Plant 1 was built in 1976 and officially opened in 1977. Plant 2 was opened in 1990 and plant 3 was opened in 2015.

Plant manager Brian Hutchins showed the group on my tour around the plant, explaining that around 4 million litres of milk are processed each day.

The group gets to see the lab in Plant 1 on the first part of the tour of the Fonterra site at Pahīatua during the open day for staff and stakeholders.

We’re taken past the lab where, back in the day when the plant was under the company name of Tui Milk Products, up to 40 people worked there.

Now, much of the operation is automated. There are a lot of systems in place to prevent any issues such as bacteria, chemicals and foreign matter (such as metals) getting into the product.

Brian shows us the milk separators, which is where the milk is separated into cream and skim. The plants also take the water out to create whole milk powder, with one of the plants being modified to create caramelised whole milk power, and some of that will be supplied to Whittakers, for their chocolate.

The tour group are given a talk about some of the automated systems.

We move on to another plant where Dave Fairbrother shows us the system of robots which we can see stacking the bags of whole milk powder before they’re taken out by automated guidance vehicles (AGVs) and down to the distribution centre.

Once they’re ready to go, they are stacked on pallets and then put on a train by forklift. The train will then go up to Hamilton and finally over to the port in Tauranga where they will be shipped overseas to any one of several countries.

Then it’s on the boilerhouse and the wastewater treatment plant.

Children especially would have enjoyed the Fonterra "train".

A group gets a closer look at one of the milk tankers.

Emphasis at Fonterra is on making things last and looking after the assets. As Fonterra is a co-operative, those assets are seen as belonging to the farmers.

The open day is the first held for a while, according to the site operations manager, Arun Rajeev, run especially for staff, farmers and stakeholders, to give them a first-hand look at the site.

Last year, Fonterra Pahīatua was awarded the Best Medium Site cup at Fonterra’s Manufacturing Site cup award.

Arun says the team is passionate about a commitment to sustainability.

“In 2018, Fonterra Pahīatua introduced an innovative system to re-use water produced during the manufacturing process. The reclaimed water system takes excess water from the milk through a reverse osmosis plant and turn it into water that is reused on-site instead of sending it down to the river.

The plant also supports the local community through fundraising, donations and providing resources for local events including the Christmas parade, and Relay for Life.

Leanne Warr has been editor of the Bush Telegraph since May 2023 and a journalist since 1996. She re-joined NZME in June 2021.