Page 29 - Food&Drink Magazine Jan-Feb 2019

Procal can produce 10,000 small yoghurt cups every hour at its Campbellfield facility.
Greener pastures
Old family recipes blended with sustainable, modern processing technology are propelling Procal Dairies to the top of the pack, writes Louisa Hearn.
DAIRY PROCESSING
GREEN sensibilities and a genuine desire to delight its customers are just two of the driving forces behind Procal’s dairy processing and distribution operations.
Owned and operated by the Thyssen family, the business is a relative newcomer to the dairy processing market, having been established four years after the industry deregulation of 1999.
But as one of only a few Australian-owned dairy processors, it is now one of the country’s largest independent operators, and supplies white milk for the café industry, and also produces a range of cream, and yoghurts – including a Greek yoghurt that claimed Gold at the 2018 Royal Agricultural Society
of Victoria’s Australian Food Awards.
“Prior to deregulation, the price of milk was set by the government and there was no real competition in the market,” Procal chief executive Adam Thyssen says.
“Because of this, the general level of service was very poor, with milk suppliers bringing to market whatever quality of
product that they wanted to.” To help turn this around, Procal built a new, modern
processing facility ten years ago in Campbellfield, Victoria.
“So many dairy companies have older factories that have been around for a long time,” says Thyssen. “What we tried to do was to create the most advanced fresh dairy processing plant in Australia.”
At this facility, Procal can pack 40,000 litres of milk and produce 10,000 small yoghurt cups every hour.
Selecting the right technology was also critical to establishing the strong sustainability credentials of the facility.
With an annual processing capacity of about 120 million litres, many of the plant’s systems have been designed to reduce use of resources such as water, gas and electricity, Thyssen says.
Procal has also developed a fully integrated in-house recycling system, to slash the amount of waste contributed to landfill, and established one of the first industry-led bottle return schemes (see box).
TRUCKING ALONG
Procal has a large refrigerated storage and distribution centre, with a second centre in Sydney, and Thyssen says another of its key points of difference is to offer customers an outstanding service.
“With milk, it can be difficult to differentiate our product, as the average consumer doesn’t see the subtle differences between different milks. The way we are able to do this is with the service we provide.”
Before establishing Procal, the family ran a fruit juice manufacturing operation, with its own distribution network. So Thyssen says it made sense to build distribution into its dairy operation.
“We have 44 trucks and 120 drivers dedicated to delivering to our customers, which makes us unique in the dairy processing industry.
“This allows us to offer a premium service to customers, who only have one number to call to place their order. Our driver will just turn up with the correct amount of product, plus a bit extra if required.”
✷ WASTE NOT BOTTLE RETURNS
Procal has established one of Australia’s first industry-led bottle return schemes with the ‘Back-to- Base’ program it runs across its wide distribution network.
This enables the manufacturer to collect and recycle approximately 40 per cent of all the bottles it sells, says Adam Thyssen, Procal chief executive.
“Our recycling program at Procal is integral to our goal of minimising our environmental impact,” he says.
“We noticed we had a lot of customers in the city with a lack of space, and empty bottles lying everywhere. We were bringing our crates back anyway so we decided we could bring those bottles back too.”
The distributors pick up the empty bottles, and Procal has a team that cleans them before they are sent out for recycling.
“Being a family company we are always concerned about the effect that the business has downstream, and so this also gives us a good story to tell our customers about how we can responsibly deal with waste in our industry.”
www.foodanddrinkbusiness.com.au | January-February 2019 | Food&Drink business | 29