News Dairy Canada
New high-tech dairy facility to be built in Alberta

A new dairy concentration facility, Dairy Innovation West (DIW), will be built in Alberta, according to an announcement made at the Alberta Milk Dairy Conference in Edmonton.

DIW will be owned by the Western Milk Pool members and will be operated by Vitalus Nutrition Inc.

DIW is said to the the “first of its kind” of facility in Canada. The technology will remove water from raw milk that will create concentrated components required by dairy processors to be used in a variety of dairy products, such as cheese. The facility will have the capacity to accommodate up to 300 million litres of milk per year.

Construction on the facility is set to begin in April 2020 and be completed by March 2021. The facility will be located near Lacombe and Red Deer.

Greener dairy transportation

A priority of the facility is to reduce the environmental impacts of transporting milk across the four western provinces. DIW, according to Alberta Milk, will reduce trucking emissions by 50 per cent by reducing the volume.

“Instead of two trucks on the road, there would only be one,” said Tom Kootstra, Alberta Milk chairman, in a statement. “Dairy farmers are always seeking more opportunities to work smarter and continue to be stewards of the land.”

Central Alberta was chosen as the site of the facility because of its high concentration of dairy farms. Kootstra, in an interview with the Red Deer Advocate, explained how much of the milk produced in the province is trucked to processing plants in Abbotsford, B.C., and as far away as Winnipeg.

Additionally, DIW promises to increase jobs and boost economic contributions in Alberta. This 20-acre site is large enough for future expansion and long-term growth in the anticipation of attracting additional processors to the site.

“We are very excited about this new partnership and are looking forward to getting shovels in the ground this spring,” said Henry Holtmann, chairman of the WMP. “This is good news for dairy farmers, dairy processors, and the economy in Western Canada,” he continues.