Together with three other dairy partners, we operate the milk powder plant (Milchtrockenwerk Norddeutschland GmbH, MTW) in Neumünster, Schleswig Holstein. In one of Europe’s largest spraying towers, approximately 45 people help to produce up to 60,000,000 kilograms of skimmed milk powder of various qualitative variants for the international food industry every year. The milk powder is distributed by Uelzena eG in the Uelzena Ingredients division.
The facility is one of the most modern milk drying plants in Europe; it began operation in May 2014. The heart of the plant is the huge spray tower for milk powder, which can dry up to 8.5 tons of skimmed milk powder per hour. The production site is situated between Hamburg and Kiel, right in the center of one of the largest milk producing and growth regions for milk in Germany. It has optimum transport connections to the harbor in Hamburg, which is a locational advantage for container shipments to customers from all over the world.
Our key products are Low Heat skimmed milk powder and Medium Heat skimmed milk powder. Sustainability is an important issue that is not just limited to milk as a raw material, which predominantly comes from the surrounding region. The new plant is also extremely energy and resource efficient in all production areas. For example, some of the energy needed to heat the milk is recovered. At the same time, the use of fresh water has been clearly reduced through optimized processes and additional process steps. Efficient heat recovery from the tower's exhaust air is a further component of the sustainable energy concept.
The highest possible standards for food safety and hygiene apply throughout the entire facility. The MTW is certified according to FSSC 22000; its products can also be produced following internationally acknowledged and certified kosher and halal guidelines. A sophisticated system of hygiene zones and fully automatic processes ensure modern and reliable hygiene management in the different production areas. Our own lab and an efficient food safety management system closely monitor production quality. This ensures a maximum of product safety.
Clean room technology has been applied to the spraying tower and the packaging lines. These high care zones in the production and packaging areas are reliably separated from the storage area by product locks. Using redundant evaporator systems, the equipment can be cleaned with the required frequency without impeding the production process. Modern metal detectors and metal collectors ensure that the packaging lines operate at a safe level. All these measures contribute to keeping the quality of the skimmed milk powder that we produce at a constant and consistent high level.
In order to produce its capacity of 60,000 tons per year, the plant has to process 600m kilograms of raw milk from the region. The milk is collected and supplied by the shareholders of the MTW, which are organized in dairy cooperatives. This ensures reliable availability of the raw material of the best possible quality. The short transport distances underline the dairy plant's sustainable production concept.
