Agriculture minister Michael Creed has officially opened a new €40m powder plant at Lakeland Dairies in Bailieboro, Co. Cavan, one of the largest such plants in Europe.

Taxpayers supported the investment programme through payments from Enterprise Ireland of €2.8m in 2015 and €4m in 2016, for a total of €6.8m of public funding for the project.

In 2015, Lakeland Dairies had turnover of €588m and booked a gross profit of €87m. Operating profit was €15.5m and after distribution costs and overhead costs of €71.6m the company’s net profit was €11m.

Through 2015, average pay and pension remuneration for Lakeland’s 696 staff was €54,600, a 9.2% increase from the average of €50,000 in 2014. The cost to Lakeland of the 2015 pay increase was €3.4 million.

Lakeland Dairies – owned by its 2,400 milk suppliers – processes over 1.2 billion litres of milk annually into 240 value-added dairy foodservice products and food ingredients for export to over 80 countries worldwide. With a third milk drying plant, Lakeland can now produce over 160,000 tonnes of milk powders and 50,000 tonnes of butter annually on the same site.

The expansion saw the installation of a new 7 tonne per hour milk dryer and evaporators where total milk powder production capacity has now increased to 20 tonnes per hour.

Lakeland Dairies’ Group CEO Michael Hanley said: “We are addressing opportunities in the areas of infant formulas, dairy proteins, food manufacturing and health related nutritional products, among other categories, where we are already a globally recognised leading supplier of powders.”

Photo (l-r): Lakeland Dairies chairman Alo Duffy, ministers Heather Humphreys and Michael Creed, and CEO Michael Hanley.(Pic: Colm Mahady / Fennell Photography)