Lakeland Dairies held an open day at its Bailieborough plant for its stakeholders, farm suppliers, and members of the local community.

The event offered an interactive experience, where stakeholders heard about the history of the co-operative, viewed the products produced in the plant, and observed the recent investments made by the processor.

The group's chief executive officer (CEO), Colin Kelly opened the day by talking through the importance of the plant to the local economy and its surrounding catchment areas.

Investment

In the last 10 years, the plant has seen large investments pumped into it, making it the largest powder milk plant in all of Europe, according to the Lakeland Dairies CEO.

Kelly said that this year's peak intake was on June 21, when the plant took in 4.43 million litres of milk, the equivalent of 180,000 cows.

The Bailieborough plant processes over 1 billion litres of milk annually, which is approximately half of Lakeland Dairies' entire milk pool.

To accommodate this high intake, the processor has recently invested €14.5 into its dairy intake alone.

Two new tanker bays were added along with five new silos, 12km of pipes were fitted along with a clean-in-place system (CIP), allowing a fully loaded tanker with 28,000L to enter the plant full and leave empty in just 16 minutes.

The plant is able to store 2.3 million litres of raw milk and 3.3 million litres of skimmed milk at any given time.

However, Kelly highlighted that considering the high intake, it is crucial that this milk be turned around quickly.

Therefore, the plant has invested in three large scale driers which have the ability to dry 22t every hour.

The plant does not just produce powdered products however, with past investments allowing the factory to also produce over 55,000t of butter annually.

Over 12t of butter are churned there every hour before being automatically packaged, ready for distribution.

Local economy

The plant currently employs over 330 people and pumps €3-4 million into the local Cavan area between milk checks and wages, according to Lakeland Dairies chair, Niall Matthews.

Overall, Lakeland Dairies is paying approximately €1 billion in milk payments on a yearly basis across all of its suppliers.

The co-operative is also paying out a further €10 million annually in environmental payments via bonuses/schemes.

The open day will be held again at the Bailieborough plant at today(Wednesday, October 8) for registered attendees, with the co-operative expecting 1,300 people to attend across the two days.