Fonterra Darnum - two decades on
Fonterra’s Darnum Plant celebrated 20 years since its opening with celebrations last week.
To celebrate the Darnum team took some time out on Wednesday to recognise the milestone, sharing lunch and birthday cake, and swapping stories about Darnum’s first two decades of operation.
Staff on different shifts celebrated on Friday and later this week. A total of 150 people are employed at the plant.
The Darnum plant was built as a greenfields site by Bonlac Foods, with production starting in July 1997, before Fonterra acquired the site in 2006. The plant produces nutritional powders for the domestic and global markets.
Site Manager Andrew Nooy said that the Darnum site played a central role in Fonterra’s strategy to establish Australia as its global ingredients hub for cheese, whey and nutritionals, complementing the domestic foodservice and consumer businesses.
“The Darnum plant is a leading nutritionals plant in Fonterra’s global network, and it has always been at the forefront of Australian dairy innovation, and renowned for its exceptional quality and safety standards,” he said.
“Darnum plays a significant role in helping Fonterra capture growing demand for nutritionals throughout Asia. This is shown through the partnerships we’ve been able to build with our nutritional customers and through our joint venture with leading Chinese infant food manufacturer Beingmate.”
Powder Process Manager Richard Willis has worked at the site since it began production in July 1997. He provided an overview of the company’s development.
He said the opening day in March 1998 was a gala event with marquees on site for a luncheon and then Premier Jeff Kennett arriving by helicopter.
He said in 2001 the plant was expanded to process liquids such as whole milk, liquid skim milk and concentrates.
Richard said with the collapse of Bonlac it was fortunate Fonterra stepped in “otherwise we could have ended up with Murray Goulburn.”
He said the fall of nutritional manufacturing resulted in job losses which meant the plant lost effectively 500 years of manufacturing experience.
“Management type positions not directly involved in production increased by 126 per cent as product and strategies have changed,” he said.
Richard said 20 years later the company had 16 of the original staff still working at the plant.
“We have a very low turnover of staff and a site which among our dairy industry we truly can still call paradise with its tranquil setting on a 750 acre greenfield site,” he said.
“We take pride in what we do, and work together as a team to maintain our reputation for high quality product.
“We’re really proud every time we see another bag of nutritional powder roll off the line, headed to markets across Asia and the world.”
Seventy five people attended Wednesday’s celebration including staff from the corporation’s head office at Mt Waverley.