NZMP flies through US Govt dairy inspection

NZMP FLIES THROUGH US GOVERNMENT DAIRY INSPECTION

The powerful United States Food & Drug Administration carried out their first inspection of two NZMP dairy manufacturing sites last week, which came through the audit with flying colours.

NZMP is the manufacturing and marketing arm of the Fonterra Co-operative Group. It is the world’s largest dairy ingredients company which last year processed over 13.1 billion litres of milk and generated revenues of NZD$9.954 billion. Collectively Fonterra represents over 20% of New Zealand’s total exports and 7% of the country's GDP.

The two Inspectors from the US Food & Drug Administration (USFDA) visited six dairy manufacturing sites including NZMP Clandeboye near Timaru and NZMP Whareroa, the country’s largest manufacturing site, located at Hawera.

Brendon Radford, NZMP’s Manager of Product Safety and Quality systems said, "There were no identified non-compliance issues for NZMP major or minor."

It is the first time in memory that the US has inspected the New Zealand dairy industry. However the USFDA recently invoked new directives on security and bio-terrorism following the terrorist attacks and anthrax incidents in September last year.

Successful inspections are critical to the New Zealand dairy industry as the USFDA has the power to stop products being imported into the United States.

“Our team of 25 Quality Coordinators have been co-ordinating the preparations for the visit for over six months, including briefing teams for presentations and to ensure any issues raised could be quickly and easily clarified.”

The Inspectors were complimentary about the positive and responsible attitudes they encountered. They also commented positively on the product safety programmes and the hazard analysis and control programmes in place.

“It confirms that NZMP is world-class producer of dairy ingredients”.

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