Smiles all round: €140 million Kilkenny cheese manufacturing facility one step closer
A HUGE €140 million development by a Kilkenny multinational company is one step closer to becoming a reality.
Glanbia and Dutch dairy partner, Royal A-ware have lodged plans with the local council seeking permission for a continental cheese manufacturing plant in Belview, Co Kilkenny.
The Kilkenny based multinational lodged the application under the name of JHOK Ltd and hopes to have the plant operational some time in 2022.
The state-of-the-art and “best in class” will create 80m full-time jobs on completion and 100 during the construction phase. The new facilty will make cheese mainly for the continental market such as Edam and Gouda.
The facility will be able to handle 450 million litres of milk per year.
The development, to be built beside Glanbia’s recently constructed €150 million Ingredients Processing Facility will include a two-storey production building with intakes, a processing plant and associated equipment, packing area, storage area, dispatch area, offices, laboratories, utilities and personnel facilities.
It will also contain a 10-bay milk intake and cream dispatch building with associated processing plant and equipment, offices, milk-testing laboratories and personnel facilities. Storage silos up to 28 metres high used for storing milk, whey and water are also in the plans. Other aspects of the development include pipe and service bridges, water treatment plant comprising balancing, waste water treatment and sludge drying facilities.
This is the latest in a series of investments by Glanbia. Just last week the company lodged an application with Kilkenny County Council to massively expand its research and development centre in Ballyragget. While earlier this year Glanbia turned the sod on the €130 million development in Togher, county Laois, which will produce mozzarella.
The two new plants and near €300 million investments, alongside the expansion of the R&D facility, is all part of a plan to diversify Glanbia’s product mix and create opportunities to grow.
Glanbia Ireland currently has 11 processing plants and employees over 1,800 people.
