Westland Milk Products is expected to deliver another billion-dollar revenue financial year in 2023 and a profit of around $NZ40 million.

Westland CEO Richard Wyeth said the result, repeating last year’s performance, puts Westland in a strong position to maintain sustainable, healthy trading balances year-on-year.

“The result has been a team effort across the board, from the quality product our farmer suppliers provide us with, to the support of our customers and work of all our team,’’ Richard said.

“Our strategy is to ensure we retain our competitive milk price advantage by ensuring we continue to maintain this strong, fiscally responsible position.

“I hope the result gives customers the confidence they need to navigate the fluctuating trading conditions we all have to deal with.’’

It has been a big year for Westland, which has included bringing innovative processor Canary under our wing.

Construction of our new $70m lactoferrin plant is well under way on our Hokitika site. Code-named Project Gold Dust, trebling our lactoferrin production capacity to meet global demand of this premium-grade product is an important part of Westland’s high-value profitability strategy.

“Investments such as this and our new butter plant will help ensure we maintain our business momentum as well as our high payments to farmers well beyond the 10-year price guarantee,’’ Richard said.

The company has also boosted its sustainability credentials substantially, winning an EcoVadis Gold award and being upgraded to Diamond status in the Toitu awards.

Strong progress has also been made across all our corporate social responsibility goals.

Our emissions audit has shown a 17.1 per cent overall reduction in emissions since the 2017/18 season, on track for an interim target of 25 per cent by 2025.

The next stage for Westland will be participating in a new management structure that will create greater collaboration across Yili’s affiliate businesses (Oceania Dairy Limited, Westland Milk Products, Canary, EasiYo and Pure Nutrition Limited), in New Zealand.

Together we are building on the success of Yili’s New Zealand ventures across the country to create a more collaborative way of operating across the business.

The new management structure, consolidates us as the third-largest dairy company in New Zealand. The aim of the new management structure is to create smoother inter-company operations across all businesses, while allowing each business to get on with what they do best. We expect this to streamline our operations and this strategic move enables us to pool resources, creating synergies and efficiencies in both production and support services. Rest assured, while we optimise our product mix and the utilisation of group assets, nothing changes for you, and our commitment to personalised and genuine customer service remains.

Oceania Dairy

https://oceaniadairy.co.nz/

Oceania Dairy was purchased as a registered start-up company in 2013 and became a wholly-owned subsidiary of parent company Inner Mongolia Yili Industrial Group Company Limited (Yili Group). Originally set up to supply milk products to its parent company either as finished goods, or as base ingredients for further blending and packaging, it now also has other customers’ in many locations around the globe and sells infant formular base powder, whole milk powder, UHT milk and cream and AMF.

Canary

https://canaryfoods.co.nz/

Purchased by Westland in 2022, Canary produce "reworked" premium butter and cheese-based products such as butter sheets and medallions for use in the retail and food service sectors, including supermarkets, airlines, restaurants, and bakeries.

EasiYo

https://nz.easiyo.com/

Purchased by Westland in 2010, EasiYo is a well-established company that is the number one brand in the make-at-home yogurt market in NZ and have developed into a strong international consumer brand. They sell through retail and catering channels, making it easy for anyone to create fresh yoghurt themselves.

Pure Nutrition

https://www.purenutrition.co.nz/home

Pure Nutrition Limited offers state of the art nutritional powder blending and canning.