The Irish dairy board, Ornua, has agreed to acquire the CoreFX Ingredients division of New Jersey-based MCT Dairies and a powder ingredient production facility in Illinois, allowing it to make greater inroads into the American market.
The acquisition has been made in partnership with former MCT Dairies executive Denis Neville, who will become CoreFX’s new CEO, and includes a speciality dry ingredients production facility in Orangeville, Illinois, near the state border with Wisconsin.
The newly named business, CoreFX Ingredients, will complement Ornua’s existing ingredients production facilities in the US, UK, Spain and Saudi Arabia, allowing it to ‘deliver scale and shared dairy technologies’, Ornua said.
Chicago-headquartered CoreFX Ingredients uses spray-drying and dry-blending technologies to produce a range of dairy, cheese and lipid powder ingredient solutions for US food manufacturing and foodservice customers. It serves a wide range of markets, including snack foods, sports nutrition, soups and sauces, dressings, infant and toddler nutrition, desserts, bakery and dairy.
Central to the business is the ability to design ingredients specific to customer requirements across a range of properties, including taste, melting point, texture, mouth feel, cost and shelf stability.
Ornua plans to further increase the scale and capability of the CoreFX Ingredients business through customer-led innovation, dairy technologies and use of its existing expertise. It is investing in the development of the production facility’s technical capabilities and in a customer innovation centre at its Chicago headquarters.
Kevin Lane, Ornua CEO, welcomed CoreFX Ingredients to the Ornua Group: “This acquisition is another key milestone in Ornua’s US expansion programme and is in line with our strategy to invest in high-growth and profitable dairy businesses. CoreFX Ingredients will provide our ingredients division with greater scale and will enhance our capability to deliver customised ingredient solutions to our customers. Importantly, we can share its dairy technologies across all of our ingredient operations around the world and, in turn, drive growth.”
CoreFX Ingredients CEO Denis Neville said: “This investment affords the CoreFX Ingredients business the opportunity to grow through the addition of technologies, infrastructure and people. I am excited to build on the platform for entrepreneurial growth that we started just a few years ago with MCT Dairies. The support of an international dairy company of Ornua’s reputation and track record will help enormously with our growth plans.”
Ornua is Ireland’s largest dairy exporter, with brands such as Kerrygold, Pilgrims Choice, Dubliner and Shannongold, as well as annual sales of around €2.5 billion.
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