GEA Process Engineering sells environment friendly technology to Australia’s Burra Foods

The Australian-based company Burra Foods has placed an order for a state-of-the-art process plant for production of milk powder at GEA Process Engineering. The new plant applies the most modern technology. Processing 1.2 mil litres of milk on a daily basis, the new spray drying plant is capable of reusing approx. 970,000 litres of water.

 

On a daily basis approx. 20,000 litres of the production water is so nutritious that it can be used as pig food directly. A part of the preheated process water can be reused for other heating purposes in the production. In this way, a majority of the total quantity of milk used in the daily production is separated for milk powder and in clean water respectively, of which 850,000 litres can go directly into farm production in the drought-stricken country.

 

Australia has suffered seriously under drought since 2001, and the new high-performing and environmentally friendly 175-mil DKK plant will meet a pressing demand. It is the first new spray drying plant delivered to an Australian dairy for eight years and will be put into use in August 2010 where the spring production of milk in Australia boosts the requirement for production capacity.

 

Burra Foods is a 100 % Australian company owned and managed by the Grothers family since 1987. The factory which is to house the new plant is located in Korumburra, Gippsland, which is one of the leading regions within milk production in Australia. At present, Burra Foods mainly produces fresh dairy products with focus on cheeses, milk concentrates and Gelato (Italian) ice cream. With the new plant from GEA Process Engineering, the factory will have a production capacity of approx. 20,000 ton of milk powder per year. In addition to supplying milk products to the Australian domestic market, Burra Foods is supplier to a wide range of leading dairy and foods suppliers in Japan, Korea, China, Taiwan, Hong Kong, Indonesia, Malaysia, Singapore and parts of the Middle East and Europe.

 

»We are extremely happy that we can contribute to ensuring that Burra Foods can produce high-quality milk power and that we can demonstrate highly environment friendly and energy saving technologies in the new plant. We hope that the technologies of GEA Process Engineering not only makes it more attractive for the Australians to invest but also for other dairies around the world that focus on environmental improvements and energy savings”, says Anders Wilhjelm, President of GEA Process Engineering.