The plant will be located near the town of Taupo and will have a full processing line, including a milk reception area, standardising, evaporator, spray drying facility and powder storage bins.

In addition, the order includes the construction of the building that will house the complete processing line.

The plant will have the capacity to process in excess of 1 million liters of milk a day and will be engineered with state-of-the-art technology according to best practice benchmarks within the milk processing industry set by GEA Process Engineering, the market leader in its field of expertise.

The plant is scheduled to be ready for operation in August 2011.

The processing line has been designed by GEA Process Engineering to create a facility with optimal sustainable and energy-efficient milk processing.

Energy used in the milk-drying process is delivered by the nearby Tuaropaki geothermal power station, which uses one of the country’s key natural resources — the natural transfer of heat from deep below ground to the earth's surface in this part of the world. In addition, up to 60 GJ per day of waste heat from the process will be recycled to further improve the energy efficiency of the plant.

The plant near Taupo is the fifth greenfield operation that GEA Process Engineering has installed in New Zealand over the past three years to meet the growing international demand for milk powder products.

GEA Process Engineering has already delivered similar capacity milk processing lines for the dairy plants for Open Country Dairies in Waharoa and Wanganui in the North Island and Awarua in the South Island, as well as Synlait at Dunsandel in the South Island.