Oceania Dairy, the South Canterbury-based dairy company owned by China's Inner Mongolia Yili, is planning to build a state-of-the-art laboratory and to invest at least another $200 million in New Zealand operations.
It is in the process of commissioning the second stage of its development, which includes a canning and blending operation for infant formula and two UHT manufacturing lines, general manager Roger Usmar said.
The first stage involved building a 10-tonne-an-hour infant formula capable dryer. Total investment so far is around $400 million.
The third stage of development will likely include a larger dryer and a lactoferrin plant.
Oceania has a small on-site laboratory for testing but expects to begin construction of a far larger laboratory to support the operation by mid-2018, Mr Usmar said. The lab will let it carry out all in-process quality checks and the vast majority of the final product grading or testing and is partly in response to increased quality oversight from China.
Most of the output is shipped to China.