Site report | IDM
The world’s highest
performance milk drying plant
8 2017 | international-dairy.com · 35
Fonterra and GEA have set a milestone
The currently most efficient milk
powder plant worldwide has been
taken into official operation by
Fonterra in Lichfield on the North
Island of New Zealand December 2016.
The capacity of "Lichfield Dryer 2" is an
impressive 30 tons of powder per hour
with rawmilk input of up to 4.4m litres a
day. GEA, with a few exceptions in terms
of supply, was in charge of the turnkey
construction.
The plant in Lichfield is almost a copy
of the Fonterra plant in Darfield, near
Christchurch, that began its production
in 2013 and features the world’s largest
spray dryer. At the Lichfield plant,
GEA worked very closely together with
Fonterra’s engineers to use the experience
gained at Darfield to further enhance
the design. The objective was to
build the best performing and most efficient
milk powder plant worldwide. Improvement
of heat, water recovery and
more efficient packaging lines are the
key that made Lichfield the most sustainable
milk drying operation worldwide.
Plant size
GEA was responsible for the turnkey
construction of the milk powder plant
and has provided the processing technology:
From milk reception and standardisation
to evaporation, drying, powder
handling and final packaging. The
spray dryer has an 18-meter chamber
that weighing 124 tons (incl. cladding,
roof and air dispersers) had to be lifted
34 meters above the roof and placed
precisely within the building. The plant
has been designed for 24/7 operation.
Designed for efficiency
Although the dryer at Lichfield is nearly
a copy of the sister plant in Darfield,
GEA engineers have included several innovations
that simplify the processes
on site and reduce the total cost of
ownership even further. Energy efficiency
was also a key focus for the project
team, GEA designing the plant for
low water consumption. Water is being
recovered through evaporation using a
RO (Reverse Osmosis) plant. As a result
Fonterra leads the way for water conservation
in milk drying plants.
"Highly-productive and efficient spray
dryers, such as the one in Lichfield, play
a decisive role in the industry," said Clint
Brown, responsible for the GEA operation
in New Zealand. "The demand for
milk in expanding markets, such as China,
can only be met by easily transportable
and stable high quality milk powder. This
is processed regionally into various dairy
products supported by other processing
plants incorporating GEA technologies."
(photo: Fonterra)