EasiYo & Ornua Nutrition Ingredients partner

Ornua Nutrition Ingredients and EasiYo, a homemade, fresh yogurt brand from New Zealand, have entered into a supply partnership. This will see ONI utilise a new, purpose built production facility at its Leek, UK headquarters to blend and pack Irish dairy powders into the full range of EasiYo natural and flavoured yogurt mixes for the UK and European markets. This will be the first time that EasiYo has been produced outside of New Zealand and marks a major step forward in the development of the brand internationally. 

EasiYo’s taste, thick texture and healthy goodness combined with being easy to make has made it one of the world’s best-selling brands of homemade yogurt. Today it has a strong consumer following in Australia, New Zealand and the Far East with ambitious plans to grow further its presence in the UK and Continental Europe, its largest market, with a major business development and marketing drive to increase its distribution and sales. 

Central to this will be the initial five year ‘end to end’ partnership between ONI and EasiYo that has seen a joint investment being made of around £700,000 (€805,000) to establish a new dedicated blending facility coupled with new high speed sachet packing lines. The new facility, which has also been supported by a £97,000 regional growth fund grant from Stoke-on-Trent City Council, will ultimately result in the creation of 20 new posts at ONI’s Leek manufacturing base. 

ONI is a subsidiary of the €2.5 billion Irish agri-food cooperative Ornua.  Ornua’s strategic objective is to develop opportunities for the export of Irish dairy products and in this respect its partnership with EasiYo represents a strong added value route to market for high quality, grass fed Irish milk. In addition, ONI and EasiYo will work collaboratively to source a range of other high quality ingredients utilising their established network of UK and overseas suppliers.

Commenting on the new partnership, Alastair Jackson, managing director of Ornua Nutrition Ingredients says, “We are delighted to be working in partnership with EasiYo on its exciting growth strategy. We both share a common cooperative ethos and are committed to achieving the highest levels of quality and service. These common values will be complemented by our new state-of-the art facility here in Leek and together with our expertise in blending, packing and sourcing of high quality ingredients, will provide a strong platform for the production of EasiYo as it expands its presence in the UK and European marketplace.”

Related content

Leave a reply

Dairy Industries International