The new facility in Chwilog, near Pwllheli is expected to enable South Caernarfon Creameries to almost double production capability. It will also enable it to increase cheese production from the current level of 9,000t a year to 17,000t annually over the next five years.
The site will also safeguard 90 jobs and should be fully operational by October.
Alan Wyn Jones, md of South Caernarfon Creameries, said:“Although it’s currently a very challenging period for milk producers and processors, this is a very exciting period for our business.
Growth and value strategy
“Our investment will result in the first new cheese factory build in the UK since the 1970s and will provide us with best-in-class production facilities that will further support our growth and added-value strategy.”
The new production unit would be efficient and flexible and would support South Caernarfon Creameries’ growth strategy with existing and new customers as well as exports, Jones added.
Current cheese production would be unaffected by the development as the existing production unit would continue to be used until the new facility was fully operational, the company said.
The building work will be carried out by local company Derwen Llyn of Pwllheli.
South Caernarfon Creameries is owned by its 120 farmer member suppliers.
Dairy farmer John Gwynant Hughes of Ynysgain Fawr, Criccieth, said: “We are proud supplying members and owners of South Caernarfon Creameries and are pleased that the business is forward-thinking and investing in our future which gives us as dairy farmers confidence in what is a very challenging period for our industry.”
Foresight and drive
In the early 1970s, the co-operative’s founder John Owen Roberts received a Member of the British Empire (MBE) award for his foresight and drive in setting up a successful dairy co-operative and his services to Welsh agriculture.
Roberts started the co-operative in 1938 at a time when farmers were reluctant to commit because similar ventures in the area had already failed.
Farmers, who were selling their milk directly to local people in the towns and villages of the Llŷn Peninsula, saw the milk co-operative as a threat to their livelihoods.
Membership back in 1938 was made up of 63 producer members.
The business remains on its original site near Chwilog on the border of the picturesque Llŷn Peninsula.