Joint venture to build whey protein plant

Arla Foods is to build a whey protein factory in Argentina as part of a joint venture company with SanCor, the country’s largest dairy.

The plant will be located in the town of Portena, about 600km north east of the capital Buenos Aires, and will have a processing capacity of nearly one million tons of whey. Arla Foods and SanCor will each supply 25% of the capital needed to set up the company, which will trade under the name of Arla Foods Ingredients. The remaining 50% will be funded by a consortium comprising the German investment bank Rabobank, the Danish Export Credit Fund and the Investment Fund for Emerging Markets.

SanCor’s 14 cheese plants will supply the whey to the new factory, which is estimated to have an annual turnover of 335 million euro. The plant will employ 90 people.

Arla’s group director Andreas Lundby said: “Arla Foods has for some time used all the whey available in Denmark. Today, however, this is not sufficient for us to service our large international customers. This combined with the significant potential for selling whey proteins in South America and SanCor’s cheese production, makes it a natural choice to build a joint whey factory in Argentina.”
Meanwhile, SanCor, which processes two billion litres of milk a year, last week announced plans to merge with Milkaut, Argentina’s third largest dairy group. The merger, expected to take place by the end of this year, will create Latin America’s largest dairy company.