{"id":61616,"date":"2025-10-06T04:15:08","date_gmt":"2025-10-06T04:15:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/61616\/"},"modified":"2025-10-06T04:15:08","modified_gmt":"2025-10-06T04:15:08","slug":"fonterras-dairy-factory-in-darfield-canterbury-feeding-chinas-cream-cheese-craving","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/61616\/","title":{"rendered":"Fonterra\u2019s dairy factory in Darfield, Canterbury feeding China\u2019s cream cheese craving"},"content":{"rendered":"<p class=\"OpntLyIinEMzNVPdR\" style=\"display:none\">It lays claim to the largest whole milk powder dryer in the world, drying about 33 tonnes an hour, according to Darfield\u2019s cream cheese manager Matt Smith.<\/p>\n<p class=\"OpntLyIinEMzNVPdR\" style=\"display:none\">The plant opened in 2012, producing milk powder  first, followed in 2018 by cream cheese. <\/p>\n<p class=\"OpntLyIinEMzNVPdR\" style=\"display:none\">Fonterra\u2019s other cream cheese plant at Te Rapa in Waikato did not have enough capacity to satisfy growing global demand.<\/p>\n<p class=\"OpntLyIinEMzNVPdR\" style=\"display:none\">Darfield produces 100 tonnes of cream cheese a day from milk, cream, a starter culture and a stabiliser to help hold the moisture.<\/p>\n<p class=\"OpntLyIinEMzNVPdR\" style=\"display:none\">\u201cWe\u2019re trying to keep that \u2018cultured\u2019 flavour in while making it in bulk,\u201d Smith said. <\/p>\n<p class=\"OpntLyIinEMzNVPdR\" style=\"display:none\">\u201cCreamy mouth-feel, nice and fatty.\u201d<\/p>\n<p><img  alt=\" Fonterra's Darfield plant manager Matt Smith, in the cream cheese blending room. Photo \/ RNZ, Cosmo Kentish-Barnes\" class=\"article-media__image responsively-lazy\" data-test-ui=\"article-media__image\"\/> Fonterra&#8217;s Darfield plant manager Matt Smith, in the cream cheese blending room. Photo \/ RNZ, Cosmo Kentish-Barnes<\/p>\n<p class=\"OpntLyIinEMzNVPdR\" style=\"display:none\">The cream cheese is poured, while still hot, into  20kg cardboard cartons lined with plastic bags. <\/p>\n<p class=\"OpntLyIinEMzNVPdR\" style=\"display:none\">Just five people run the highly automated cream cheese line, which runs \u201cbasically 24\/7\u201d.<\/p>\n<p><img  alt=\"Twenty-kilogram boxes of cream cheese at Fonterra's Darfield factory. One hundred tonnes of cream cheese is made each day for Asian markets. Photo \/ RNZ, Cosmo Kentish-Barnes\" class=\"article-media__image responsively-lazy\" data-test-ui=\"article-media__image\"\/>Twenty-kilogram boxes of cream cheese at Fonterra&#8217;s Darfield factory. One hundred tonnes of cream cheese is made each day for Asian markets. Photo \/ RNZ, Cosmo Kentish-Barnes<\/p>\n<p class=\"OpntLyIinEMzNVPdR\" style=\"display:none\">After rapid cooling, the cartons are stacked and moved by robots and automated forklifts, which whizz around the factory floor tooting just as if a human were at the helm.<\/p>\n<p class=\"OpntLyIinEMzNVPdR\" style=\"display:none\">The cream cheese is stored in great stacks in a chilled area of the plant before being exported to China, Japan and Southeast Asian countries, where it is in hot demand for sweet dairy-topped tea, pastries and cakes.<\/p>\n<p class=\"OpntLyIinEMzNVPdR\" style=\"display:none\">\u201cWe can\u2019t make enough cream cheese at the moment,\u201d Smith said.<\/p>\n<p class=\"OpntLyIinEMzNVPdR\" style=\"display:none\">&#8211; RNZ<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"It lays claim to the largest whole milk powder dryer in the world, drying about 33 tonnes an&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":61617,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[138,8126,33055,4413,50515,2066,7224,50514,13741,30868,17766,78,111,139,69],"class_list":["post-61616","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-business","tag-business","tag-canterbury","tag-cheese","tag-chinas","tag-craving","tag-cream","tag-dairy","tag-darfield","tag-factory","tag-feeding","tag-fonterras","tag-in","tag-new-zealand","tag-newzealand","tag-nz"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/61616","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=61616"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/61616\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/61617"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=61616"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=61616"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=61616"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}