Fonterra has completed construction on a new mozzarella production plant at its Clandeboye site in New Zealand, a move that doubles its cheese production capacity.
Fonterra is looking to build on strength in foodservice segment and the new plant is part of this. It also follows the doubling of cream cheese production at Te Rapa and commissioning of the Waitoa UHT site.
Fonterra also plans to expand slice-on-slice cheese capacity at Eltham.
With around 25 employees, the new mozzarella plant will begin producing quick frozen grated mozzarella 24 hours a day to meet global demand.
The mozzarella produced at the plant will be enough to top more than 300 million pizzas a year.
Fonterra Clandeboye Site manager Steve McKnight said: "We're seeing the popularity of cheese really take off in Asia, so the timing of this upgrade couldn't be better."
The company will procure winter milk from farmers in Canterbury, Southland and Otago for the plant.
Fonterra Global Operations managing director Robert Spurway said: "The expansion at Clandeboye is a great example of our V3 strategy in action.
"Foodservice products such as cheese give a high value on return and, thanks to our strength in research and development, we're able to cut months off the production time of this mozzarella to deliver on our velocity proposition. The additional capacity will bring volume to that equation."