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A cluster of 11 Bay of Plenty Maori land trusts have partnered with Japanese food company Imanaka to develop a milk processing plant in Kawerau.
Project coordinator Richard Jones from Maori business support agency Poutama Trust says Kawerau Dairy is similar to Miraka near Taupo, with Maori interests supplying milk and geothermal energy and working with an overseas food group.
It’s an opportunity for participants to learn how things work in the whole value chain rather than just being suppliers of milk.
Stage one of the $32 million project involves the development of an 800 kilogram per hour drier to process conventional cow milk and organic cow milk into high-value products such as milk protein concentrate 85, which is an ingredient in health drinks and foodstuffs.
Once that is established the group could build another drier for goat and sheep milk.
The plant will be on land owned by Putauaki Trust with its principal energy supply sourced from wells owned by Ngati Tuwharetoa Geothermal Assets.
Imanaka’s Cedenco subsidiary, which will have a one third shareholding, already owns vegetable processing and marine farming and mussel processing operations in New Zealand.
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