Karamea company makes first casein

Press, 19 May 1984, Page 14

Karamea company makes first casein

Westport reporter The Karamea Dairy Company has produced its first casein after trials with its new plant, marking a new era in dairying in the district. The new plant is almost completed except for some inside finishing work, cleaning up, and site restoration. Included in the $3.1 million updating and remodelling project is a new office block, butter cold store, and whey disposal pipe line. A tanker unloading bay has also been included in the casein building to help ease congestion round the boiler room.

At the height of the project more than 40 men from eight contracting firms were employed on the project, some from Auckland. Local contractors have also been kept busy assembling one of the most modern casein plants in New Zealand. Tests started on May 1

with the commissioning of the new milk separator which has effectively doubled the efficiency and capacity of the old unit. The same day the starter or “clotting agent” was added to the skim milk to give it time to act before the next process. On May 2 the whole casein plant was given a test run.

The project manager, Mr Bill Falconer, said the plant had had no problems during the first test thanks to the high standard of the contractors’ work. The plant produced 500 kg of casein from 20,000 litres of skim milk.

fests and training would continue until the end of the season, he said. Next season the plant would need only five or six staff to make 750 kg of high grade casein from 22,000 litres of skim milk in each hour.

Left over whey from the plant is now being used as

fertiliser on four local farms. Next year the factory will produce 30,000.000 litres of whev.

According to the company local farmers are keen to use the whey as fertiliser. Mr Falconer said he had already had orders for 15,000,000 litres, or about 50 per cent of next year’s total production. The rest of the whey and waste will be pumped out to sea.

The main waste pipe line will run three kilometres across farm land and over the new Quinland Bridge, out to the flag staff just north of Karamea township and to the sea below the low tide mark. Two of the old milk silos from the old factory have been moved to the new building to join three new silos, each able to hold 90,000 litres. The new silos were built in Christchurch and taken to Karamea by road.

During winter a 4000 sq m butter cool store will be built. This will double as a cold store for locally produced kiwifruit, making that industry an even more attractive proposition.

Mr Falconer said the factory would still make butter along with some milk powder from buttermilk left over from butter making.