Fonterra has announced plans for a multimillion-dollar milk processing factory to be built near Darfield, 45km west of Christchurch, which it expects to open for the 2012-13 milking season.
Fonterra's managing director of trade and operations, Gary Romano, said options were still being considered for the type of product to be produced, but the Mid-Canterbury site made sense given the region was the fastest-growing dairying region in the country.
He said 15% of the milk produced for export came from Canterbury, and milk flows from the province were increasing at 5% a year.
Until now, it has all been trucked to Clandeboye, near Timaru, for processing.
The proposed factory would have capacity for 2.2 million litres of milk a day, equivalent to production from 200 farms.
Possible products include a highly efficient milk powder plant, similar to the fourth drier recently opened at Fonterra's Edendale site in Southland, or production of high-value nutritional milk powders.
The new Ed 4 drier at Edendale cost $212 million and can handle 4.4 million litres of milk a day.
Mr Romano said as well as catering for the growth of milk production in Canterbury, a new factory would reduce truck flows from Mid and North Canterbury to Clandeboye.
It was also closer to the Port of Lyttelton through which export product would be shipped.
The factory was expected to create 50 jobs.
A competing privately-owned dairy company, Synlait, opened a milk processing factory at Dunsandel in Canterbury in August 2008, while two other South Island processors, Oceania Dairy Group and Mataura Valley, were raising capital.
Oceania hopes to raise $95 million for a plant to be built at Glenavy in South Canterbury, while Mataura Valley has not said how much it wants for a plant it proposes to build north of Gore.
