In a push to boost local dairy production in Africa’s biggest economy, FrieslandCampina is set to build a mobile yoghurt plant in the country.
The plant will enable the company to process milk from local dairy farmers into long-life yoghurt drinks, said a statement signed by Ore Famurewa, executive director – corporate affairs.
The project is part of the Dairy Development Programme that supports local farmers to increase their milk production, improve the quality of the milk and offer them access to the market, according to the statement.
“With this mobile dairy plant we help thousands of local Nigerian farmers by ensuring the sales of their milk and, consequently, their income,” said Jeroen Elfers, corporate director of dairy development and milk streams at FrieslandCampina in a statement.
“We are also creating jobs and provide the population with nutritious and affordable dairy products. In this way, we are cooperating with the Nigerian government in providing food for the rapidly growing population,” Elfers explained.
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Also, the project is expected to contribute to stronger value chains, economy, and good nutrition for the local population.
The plant consists of five interlinked containers and was built by Scherjon Dairy Equipment and Onesto Construction in Surhuisterveen and Drachten (Netherlands) respectively. The five 40 ft containers will soon be shipped to Nigeria, said the statement.
“As soon as the containers arrive at their destination, they will be interlinked, and the yoghurt production can be started. Milk from local dairy farmers is used for the yoghurt,” the statement added.
With this mobile yoghurt plant, FrieslandCampina extends its processing capacity in Nigeria. With 200 million inhabitants, Nigeria is an important market to FrieslandCampina.
FrieslandCampina does not only export dairy products and semi-finished products from the Netherlands, but it also produces dairy products using milk coming from local dairy farmers in the country itself.
When it finally comes on board, the new yoghurt plant will start with processing 1.8 million kilograms of milk and can annually produce more than 18 million pouches of drinking yoghurt.
The processing capacity can rapidly be scaled up. “We expect we will be able to put the plant into use in the first quarter of 2022 in Nigeria.”
