FoodWaikato’s spray dryer is about to undergo a $7 million upgrade as it eyes expanding its colostrum collection and processing capabilities.
The company, located at the Waikato Innovation Park in Ruakura, is in the middle of colostrum collection as dairy farms across the country calve their cows.
The plant upgrade will allow the colostrum to be “taken to bits”, Food Waikato chief executive Trevor Lock said.
The best “highly bioactive” parts of the colostrum will be processed into food supplements for gut health by plant owner, South Auckland-based New Image Group, and the rest used to create other products starting in 2025.
“We’re moving from dietary supplements – formulated products which we are making right now – to true nutraceuticals, where we are making soft claims.”
A research programme is in place to support those claims and $4.5m is being spent on research and development over the next few years.
Lock said they are looking for more farmers with the aim of having 100 farmers supplying the dryer with colostrum by next year.
They are also investigating the viability of collecting from farms that autumn or split calving.
Colostrum is the first secretion from a cow’s udder after giving birth and farmers are not permitted to put it into the milk supply until eight milkings have been completed – which is usually around four days.
Apart from Westland Milk and New Image, no other major dairy company collects colostrum. It is costly and its small volume makes it difficult to process in the large dryers most modern dairy companies use, Lock said.
“It’s very difficult to make. It’s difficult to collect and it’s difficult to manufacture.”
In their first run using the dryer, they processed the colostrum and tested its viscosity before drying it and it came out at 700 centipoise.
“It was like a thick paste. It’s very sticky, it’s very difficult.”
By comparison, regular cow’s milk has a viscosity reading of 20 centipoise, he said.
The flipside is there is enormous market demand for colostrum-based nutraceuticals. This is because the main global exporter, the United States, stopped exporting the product.
“Outside the US, New Image would be the largest colostrum user in the world,” he said.
The company exports its product to 26 countries, turning colostrum into a powdered drink for both adults and children to promote gut health.
The demand along with the factory upgrade has enabled Lock to hire four more staff.
The expansion means the company is now operating 24 hours a day, seven days a week.
The factory currently has a single dryer that can produce 500kg an hour and operates on four shifts with two people working on each shift.
When it processes nutritional formulas, it processes around 400kg an hour.
It also has a “wet side” operation that makes up all the ingredients for the nutritional formulas. That crew has two people and is about to double. Next year, he hopes to add two more as the operation moves to 24/7 too.
The company has a chequered history, having been put into liquidation last year before being purchased by South Auckland-based company New Image Group (NIG) in December. Lock has 25 years of experience in the colostrum market, having worked on developing the process to develop colostrum.
Lock also has a fraud conviction and spent time in prison, which he is open about, saying he “did his time”.
Last year the company collected from four farms in South Waikato and this has expanded to more farms for this calving. Lock contracted the spray dryer at the Innovation Park on behalf of New Image to manufacture the colostrum, making 2 tonnes for the market.
Lock then put a business case to New Image to buy the plant and employ Lock to run it.
The colostrum collection does not interfere with the farmer’s relationship with the milk supplier, nor does it prevent the calf from getting all the colostrum it needs.
The payment for the colostrum is based on the product’s immunoglobulin G (IgG) levels measured from three milkings done while the cow is producing colostrum.
The higher the IgG, the higher the payment. At the top end, the company pays $3.35/ litre for a 25-28 IgG level per litre and this is usually measured during the cow’s first and second milking. At the bottom end, it pays $1.35/L when the IgG is at 10-12/L.
The average payment would be $2.25/L from around 18L of colostrum from the first 36 hours since calving.
“If a farmer has 600 cows and they earn $2.25 a litre, it’s worth around $43.20 per cow for six weeks’ work.”
It adds up to around $25,920.
“We have one farmer in Southland who will earn in excess of $100,000,” he said.
“It’s good for the New Zealand farmer.”
On farms outside the tanker pickup area, the colostrum is bagged and frozen while it waits for collection for transport back to the dryer.
During the times of the year when cows are not producing colostrum, the major dairy companies use the dryer to test and trial new products and make specialised nutritional products.
Once the upgrade is completed, Lock also plans to process milk for specialised ingredient products for NIG.
The dryer is also collecting and processing goat’s milk products via NIG, providing income for those cash-strapped farmers and supply security for them.
It also provided a lifeline earlier in the year for sheep-milking company Maui Milk, agreeing to process and sell the milk for 11 of its suppliers.
“Where this plant was going into liquidation into December, we have turned it around completely into a significant profit-making entity, hired more staff – the lights are staying on.”
