Growing volumes include 100% increase in amount of butter shipped since year before.
A strong start to the milking season combined with high product demand has seen a 14% increase in Westland’s products being shipped in the final 2024 quarter.
That percentage increases equates to 60,000 tonnes of products being shipped in the quarter compared to 53,000t exported for the same period in 2023, the company said.
The tonnage included a 100% increase in the amount of butter shipped over the same time last year while it also lifted colostrum, UHT milk and UHT cream shipment volumes significantly.
The growth reflects the company’s efforts to meet global demand, supported by the addition of 46 new Westpro customers last year. Its products were shipped to 120 ports worldwide, an increase from 108 in the previous year, it said.
It also meant a strong season for producing colostrum. During the peak of the season the company was producing almost 1000 tonnes of finished milk products across its manufacturing sites on its highest production days.
Westland’s general manager for supply chain Kevin Wang said both its export and domestic markets are performing strongly.
“The increased product demand is across the board for both our fat and protein portfolios.
“We have been able to bring in additional milk from external parties to ensure that we can increase our production capacity across our processing operation to meet the current demand for our milk products. Across the production and supply chain, our teams have done so well to convert the higher volume of milk into sought-after product.”
The nature of New Zealand’s milk production curve meant November and December will always be peak times for shipping out Westland’s products, Wang said.
“It’s not always easy to execute given the holiday season. We have faced a number of challenges including resourcing our warehouses, vessel schedule changes, container shortage, transportation resources, constraints around external laboratory testing and customer port permit issues.
“However, as the results show, our teams did so well and there was incredible teamwork between sales, order management, quality, production and the supply chain.”
In January, Westland announced that Zhiqiang Li will be acting chief executive officer following the resignation of Richard Wyeth.
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