The investment will see the construction of the Valio Joensuu production plant’s maturation warehouse expansion and the automation of its operations.
Valio will also renovate the old maturation warehouse, to accommodate the production lines being relocated from the Vantaa production plant.
Cheese-slicing and -grating activities, as well as processed cheese production, will be relocated from Vantaa to Joensuu.
Production Process
The investment will help the company move its entire cheese production process under one roof at the Joensuu plant.
Milk collected from Valio farms is pasteurised to make cheese, which is then salted and, finally, ripened in the warehouse.
After maturing, the cheese is processed further, for block packaging, slicing or grating.
In the future, processed cheese will also be produced at the plant, Valio added.
The new automated warehouse will improve efficiency and savings at the production plant’s operations.
Petri Liukka, director of the Joensuu plant, stated, “The expansion will create a total of about one hundred new jobs at the Joensuu production plant within a couple of years. New positions will be created as the new production lines and facilities are gradually taken into use.
“At this stage, we have already recruited 15 new employees, and a few dozen more positions will become available on the slicing lines later this year. Valio employees from the Vantaa plant have also transferred to positions in Joensuu.”
Joensuu Production Plant
In Finland, most dairy farms are located in an area stretching from Ostrobothnia to eastern Finland.
The Joensuu production plant produces one third of all Valio cheeses with milk from 800 dairy farms located mainly in North Karelia.
The annual production volume of the plant is approximately 25 million kilograms of cheese blocks, consumer packaged cheese, cream cheese, and milk powders.
Some of the main products include Valio Polar, Valio Salaneuvos, and Valio Viola.
Approximately 20% of the products made at the Joensuu production plant are exported, the company noted.
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