Media Backgrounder
Fonterra Co-operative Group is one of the top ten dairy companies in the world.
Fonterra Co-operative Group is a global leader in dairy nutrition.
The New Zealand dairy industry is responsible for around a third of international dairy trade. Fonterra collects over 14 billion litres of milk a year from New Zealand farms and sells more than 2.3 million MT of product. Few organisations can rival the diverse skills found in the business. Fonterra people include farmers, farm advisory specialists, environmental experts, research scientists, food technologists, cheese makers, manufacturing and engineering staff, tanker drivers, trade and regulatory experts, nutritionists, economists, process development technologists, logistics managers, sales, marketing and brand managers, accountants, lawyers, IT specialists and administrators. Fonterra is a significant employer with -15,600 permanent employees, 9,500 of them based in New Zealand.
With a brand portfolio of New Zealand, Australian and international household names and valued at almost NZ$1.6 billion, Fonterra’s products include dairy commodities, specialty ingredients and branded milks, spreads, yoghurts, cheeses, dairy desserts and ice cream.
Production
In a typical year, Fonterra sells 350 MT of dairy commodities every hour, closing the doors on a container of export product every five minutes at New Zealand export ports. Sales are managed through a global network supported by the New Zealand-based Fonterra Customer Service Centre which works round the clock and in eight languages.
With 24 processing sites in New Zealand, 10 in Australia and another 50 around the world, Fonterra has the scale to process some 20 billion litres of milk a year. These assets include the world’s largest dairy ingredients manufacturing site in Whareroa, Taranaki. On site are five powder plants, two cheese plants and plants producing cream product, casein and whey. Every hour, Whareroa can produce more than 42 MT of powders, 12 MT of drysalt cheese, 10 MT of mozzarella.
In September 2009, Fonterra commissioned the world’s most efficient powder plant, ED4, at Edendale, Southland. Edendale’s new drier can produce 1 tonne of whole milk powder every two minutes, and significantly reduces the cost of turning milk into final product.
Edendale is the co-operative’s largest processing site with the capacity to process more than 15 million litres of milk per day.
Sales Channels
Fonterra has four sales channels, Fonterra GlobalTrade, Fonterra Ingredients, Fonterra Brands and Fonterra Foodservices.
Fonterra GlobalTrade supplies bulk dairy commodities (milk proteins, powders, butter and cheese) to markets in Asia, the Middle East and Africa, the Americas and Oceania.
In July 2008, Fonterra introduced globalDairyTrade – the world’s first online trading platform to sell bulk dairy commodities into the international market. Since then more than NZ$1 billion of product has been sold on the globalDairyTrade platform.
Fonterra Ingredients sells dairy ingredients in the US, Western Europe, Japan and Korea. These include specialised ingredients for food manufacturers.
Fonterra Brands produces and sell branded dairy products to consumers in 40 countries. Its brand portfolio includes Anchor™, Mainland™, Fresh n’ Fruity™, Anlene™, Anmum™, Fernleaf™, Tip Top™, Kapiti™, Bega™, Ski™, Nestlé Diet™, Nestlé Milo™ and Peters™ and Brownes™. Many of these brands have long established pedigrees, including the Anchor™, brand created in 1886 and the Tip Top™ brand, which celebrated its 50th anniversary in 2007.
Fonterra Foodservice provides both dairy ingredients and branded consumer goods to foodservice customers including fast food chains, airline catering centres, hotels and restaurants, with the majority of sales in the Asia Pacific region.
Export Contribution
Fonterra is New Zealand’s only true multinational, operating in 140 markets around the world. Export returns from these markets account for some 25 per cent of New Zealand’s total export earnings.
The co-operative, with NZ$14.1 billion in assets, is owned by 10,500 New Zealand dairy farmer shareholders. As a co-operative, Fonterra pays out its operating surplus to shareholders as payment for milk and also pays out is distributable profits (after retentions) by way of dividends on shares.
As New Zealand’s largest company, Fonterra achieved revenues of NZ$16 billion in the 12 months to July 31, 2009.
