Power to the plant was cut for a number of hours by the 6.2 quake centred on the southern Wairarapa coast just before 4pm on Monday.
Fonterra’s NZ operations director Robert Spurway said the power outage necessitated cleaning processing equipment and diverting milk once rail transport resumed to the Whareroa plant near Hawera.
Pahiatua also suffered some minor water damage when a sprinkler went off in a dry goods store containing packing equipment.
The plant was able to resume processing all milk on site late last night, pending structural inspection by engineers today, which provided an all clear.
No damage was reported at Fonterra sites in Palmerston North, Spurway said.
The co-operative’s contact centre had about a dozen calls from farmers in the quake region, mainly seeking the timetable for tanker calls after short power cuts had delayed milkings, he said.
“We had one report of a damaged vat but none of milk dumping.”
