A start has been made on commissioning the new $214 million Oceania Dairy milk processing plant at Glenavy.
Most of its permanent staff have been employed and are on site.=
There are now 63 staff in the office building, in addition to contractors still working there. Once the plant is in production this season, there will be more than 70 Oceania staff, and about 100 will be employed when it reaches full production.
Oceania chief executive officer Aiden Johnstone said staff were pleased to be all on site after almost 14 months of running dual operations at Glenavy and Timaru.
''Total staff numbers are expected to exceed 70 by the time the factory starts receiving milk in late July. We are still recruiting for positions in the laboratory, warehouse and office,'' he said.
Although construction was not totally complete, the commissioning programme had started.
Dry commissioning work was under way on the chilled water, wastewater treatment and bore water systems and the boiler had been fired up to deliver steam.
''Construction will be completed in time for the arrival of our first milk supplies,'' he said.
The company would then run a further six weeks of commissioning and performance testing before the final handover of the factory from construction to production by the middle of September.
The plant is being built for Chinese company Inner Mongolia Yili Industrial Group and has contracts with about 40 local farmers for the 2014-15 supply season to deliver 130 million litres of milk.
Once it moves to full production capacity by 2016-17, it will process 300 million litres a year, producing 47,000 tonnes of milk powder for export to China, to be used in infant formula.
