The plant would produce 45,000 tonnes of hard cheeses annually – cheddar, parmesan, mozzarella and romano – a 50% increase on the output of the old plant.
It would also send whey to the Darnum, Gippsland, joint venture infant formula plant between Fonterra and Beingmate.
Country managing director Rene Dedoncker said Fonterra was already the leader in Australia’s $2 billion a year consumer cheese category along with being the market leader in food service and one of the top dairy ingredients exporters.
The Fonterra Australia core strategy consisted of cheese, whey and infant nutritionals, he said.
After a fire destroyed the Stanhope plant in December 2014 it was rebuilt at a cost of A$140 million and opened this month by Victorian Regional Development and Agriculture Minister Jaala Pulford.
The rebuild retained 120 jobs and created an additional 30 jobs, she said.
Construction was part-funded by the Victorian Government’s Regional Jobs and Infrastructure Fund and 200 local contractors had worked on the new plant.
Fonterra chairman John Wilson said the Stanhope output would help satisfy growing demand for cheese in Australia and the growing middle class in Asian markets.
Mozzarella demand was especially notable and Stanhope would reach full production with all its mozzarella output contracted.
Fonterra needed 50% more milk in northern Victoria to fully use the new plant, which would come from new supply, more supply from existing farms and a back-up ability to transport milk from other parts of Victoria.
At the opening Fonterra said its milk intake for 2017-18 across seven plants in Victoria and Tasmania would be two billion litres.
Dedoncker said earlier in the year that 1100 farms supplied 1.7b litres in 2016-17.
Therefore the latest figure indicated Fonterra had acquired new milk supply from the troubled Murray Goulburn co-operative.
