Westland Milk Products is a dairy company based in

Hokitika Hokitika is a town in the West Coast region of New Zealand's South Island, south of Greymouth, and close to the mouth of the Hokitika River. It is the seat and largest town in the Westland District. The town's estimated population is as of ...

, New Zealand. It has been owned by Chinese dairy company Yili Group since 2019. It is the third-equal largest dairy processor in New Zealand (behind

Fonterra Fonterra Co-operative Group Limited is a New Zealand multinational publicly traded dairy co-operative owned by around 9,000 New Zealand farmers. The company is responsible for approximately 30% of the world's dairy exports and with revenue exc ...

and Open Country Dairy, and tied with

Synlait Synlait Milk is a New Zealand milk nutrition company with several locations, both in New Zealand and overseas. Its home base is in Dunsandel, Canterbury. Synlait has additional manufacturing sites in Auckland and Pokeno, an administration o ...

) with a 3.4% market share. Milk is sourced from farms across the West Coast, as far north as

Karamea Karamea is a town on the West Coast of the South Island of New Zealand. It is the northernmost settlement of any real size on the West Coast, and is located northeast by road from Westport. Apart from a narrow coastal strip, the town of Kara ...

and as far south as Haast, and from farms throughout

Canterbury Canterbury (, ) is a cathedral city and UNESCO World Heritage Site, situated in the heart of the City of Canterbury local government district of Kent, England. It lies on the River Stour. The Archbishop of Canterbury is the primate of t ...

. Their major processing factory is located in Hokitika, with their main warehouse and milk concentration plant near Rolleston in Canterbury.

History

The Westland Co-operative Dairy Company Limited was formed in 1937 following the amalgamation of a number of small co-operatives within the Westland region including Kokatahi, Waitaha and part of the Arahura Dairy Companies. Prior to the restructuring of the dairy industry in 2001, dairy products manufactured in New Zealand were marketed and exported by the

New Zealand Dairy Board The New Zealand Dairy Board (NZDB) was a statutory board in control of the export of all New Zealand dairy products from its formation in 1923 until 2001. It operated through a global network of marketing subsidiaries. In 2001, the Dairy Board wa ...

, which was jointly owned by all dairy companies. In 2001, the industry was deregulated and the New Zealand Dairy Group, Kiwi Co-operative Dairies and the New Zealand Dairy Board amalgamated to form

. Westland Milk Products shareholders elected not to participate in the amalgamation and so became a fully independent dairy company responsible for the sales and marketing of its own products. In 2004, Westland launched their consumer butter brand Westgold. In 2009 the Rolleston storage and sales and marketing office was established, and the site now also houses a

Reverse Osmosis Plant A reverse osmosis plant is a manufacturing plant where the process of reverse osmosis takes place. Reverse osmosis is a common process to purify or desalinate contaminated water by forcing water through a membrane. Water produced by reverse osm ...

and staff from many different business areas - including Customer Service, IT, Finance, Supply Chain, People and Capability and Milk Collection. In 2010, Westland acquired full ownership of EasiYo, a make-at-home yoghurt company based in

Auckland Auckland (pronounced ) ( mi, Tāmaki Makaurau) is a large metropolitan city in the North Island of New Zealand. The most populous urban area in the country and the fifth largest city in Oceania, Auckland has an urban population of about I ...

The following year, in 2011, milk collection from Canterbury shareholders began. In 2012, Westland began manufacture of Infant nutritional products and launched their "Westpro Nutrition" range. This was closely followed, in 2013, by the construction of Dryer 7, a dedicated Infant and Toddler Nutritionals (ITN) plant. In 2014, Westland opened their first offshore office in

Shanghai, China Shanghai (; , , Standard Mandarin pronunciation: ) is one of the four direct-administered municipalities of the People's Republic of China (PRC). The city is located on the southern estuary of the Yangtze River, with the Huangpu River flowin ...

On 18 March 2019, China's Yili Group signed an agreement to acquire 100% equity of Westland Milk Products, subject to shareholder approval - which was overwhelmingly given on 4 July.

Products

Westland manufactures a variety of products derived from

milk Milk is a white liquid food produced by the mammary glands of mammals. It is the primary source of nutrition for young mammals (including breastfed human infants) before they are able to digest solid food. Immune factors and immune-modulat ...

, ranging from

commodity In economics, a commodity is an economic good, usually a resource, that has full or substantial fungibility: that is, the market treats instances of the good as equivalent or nearly so with no regard to who produced them. The price of a co ...

milk powders to infant nutrition products. The full range of products is as follows:

Ingredients

* Skim milk powder * Whole milk powder * Buttermilk powder *

Milk protein concentrate Milk protein concentrate (MPC) is any type of concentrated milk product that contains 40–90% milk protein. The United States officially defines MPC as "any complete milk protein (casein plus lactalbumin) concentrate that is 40 percent or more ...

Whey protein concentrate Whey protein is a mixture of proteins isolated from whey, the liquid material created as a by-product of cheese production. The proteins consist of α-lactalbumin, β-lactoglobulin, serum albumin and immunoglobulins. Glycomacropeptide also mak ...

Casein Casein ( , from Latin ''caseus'' "cheese") is a family of related phosphoproteins ( αS1, aS2, β, κ) that are commonly found in mammalian milk, comprising about 80% of the proteins in cow's milk and between 20% and 60% of the proteins in hum ...

and caseinates *

Butter Butter is a dairy product made from the fat and protein components of churned cream. It is a semi-solid emulsion at room temperature, consisting of approximately 80% butterfat. It is used at room temperature as a spread, melted as a condim ...

* Anhydrous milk fat (AMF)

Bio-active

Lactoferrin Lactoferrin (LF), also known as lactotransferrin (LTF), is a multifunctional protein of the transferrin family. Lactoferrin is a globular glycoprotein with a molecular mass of about 80 kDa that is widely represented in various secretory fluids, s ...

Colostrum Colostrum, also known as beestings or first milk, is the first form of milk produced by the mammary glands of mammals (including humans) immediately following delivery of the newborn. Colostrum powder is rich in high protein and low in sugar and ...

Infant and toddler nutritionals

* Stage 1

Infant Formula Infant formula, baby formula, or simply formula (American English); or baby milk, infant milk or first milk (British English), is a manufactured food designed and marketed for feeding to babies and infants under 12 months of age, usually prepar ...

base * Stage 2

base * Stage 3

base

Organisational memberships

* New Zealand Co-operatives Association (Inc) * Dairy Companies Association of New Zealand (DCANZ) * Infant Nutrition council

Sites

Westland Milk Products has three sites worldwide. * Headquarters in

, New Zealand, on the corner of Livingstone and Stafford Streets. * In the industrial zone in Rolleston (23 kilometres south of Christchurch), on Westland Place. * China office in the municipality of Changning in

Quality management system

Westland Milk Products uses a quality management system known as Food Safety System Certification (FSSC) 22000 to monitor all aspects of its operations including milk collection, administration, stores and maintenance. An independent organization audits this system to an international standard.

Awards

Westland Milk Products has won a number of business and innovation awards. In 2012, Westland Milk Products won the Ministry of Science and Innovation's Best Use of Research and Development category at the New Zealand International Business Awards. In the same year, Westland Milk Products was also named the Supreme Winner of the 2012 West Coast Lending Light Business Excellence Awards. Four years later, Westland Milk Products was a finalist in the 2016 New Zealand International Business Awards for the Excellence in Design category. In March 2016, Westgold Unsalted Butter, a trademarked product of Westland Milk Products, won the prestigious Food for Chefs Champion Butter Award.

Community involvement

In 2016, Westland Milk Products partnered with the Westland District Council to fund the Blue Spur Water Treatment Plant Expansion Project. This project received a highly commended award in the Chorus Excellence Award for Best Practice in Infrastructure Management. Westland Milk Products sponsors Ronald McDonald House, Federated Farmers, The Canterbury West Coast Air Rescue Trust, as well as numerous Hockey, Netball, Rugby Union, Basketball and Rugby League junior sports clubs in the Buller, Grey and Westland Districts of the West Coast. Additionally, Westland Milk Products has formerly been a sponsor of the West Coast Penguin Trust.

References

External links

* {{Authority control Dairy products companies of New Zealand Food and drink companies established in 1937 Hokitika 2019 mergers and acquisitions New Zealand subsidiaries of foreign companies New Zealand companies established in 1937 Rolleston, New Zealand