CSB - Aaron Goldsbury - General Manager of Engineering at Fonterra

It's wintertime now and milking has stopped at some dairy farms. Have Fonterra's manufacturing sites also entered the off-season period? 

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
From the sports field to the shearing shed. It's the
Country Sport Breakfast with Brian Kelly on Gold Sport.

Speaker 2 (00:07):
Time to catch up now with the team from Fontira,
and today we're joined by Aaron Goldsbury, general Manager of
Engineering at Fontira. Aaron, Welcome to the show. Great to
have you along here.

Speaker 1 (00:19):
Thanks Brian for having me.

Speaker 2 (00:21):
Right, let's talk winter time eron. It's winter on a
lot of farms and I know milking has stopped at
some dairy farms, so have Fontira's manufacturing sites also entered
the off season period?

Speaker 1 (00:33):
Yeah, absolutely, So this time of the year is what
we normally call our winter shop that goes from June
through to August across our twenty six manufacturing sits where
we stop processing milk and move into our annual winter maintenance.
So we've got twenty six sites and about six hundred
thousand assets. So example is like a large pumpers and
asiot and where this year we're a vesting about fifty

(00:56):
six million dollars to maintain those assets. But takes a
lot of effort, so three hundred thousand hours of if
it happens across a whole bunch of different trades mechanical
or lictrical building. He'll be on site every week and
also complete on average about one hundred and fifty capital projects.
So you imagine getting that we're done takes a hell
of a lot of efforts.

Speaker 2 (01:16):
Oh, mate, that's a huge amount of work. I reckon
maintenance though, is very very important to make sure that
frontier sites are ready for the next season.

Speaker 1 (01:25):
Right, Yeah, that's right, Brian. So we've clicked a massive
amount of not from our farmers and we need to
better process our plants at full capacity for most of
the season. So making sure that we have our plants reliable,
ready to operate as really important. So that investment and
capital and maintenance this time of the year is essential
for us.

Speaker 2 (01:46):
Can you share with the summer of the major projects
on all of those sites that go on erin Yeah. Sure.

Speaker 1 (01:54):
So we've got twenty seven sites and the age of
those sites is getting older. It's probably just over the years,
so it's really important that we look after the condition
of those plants and make sure we can keep on
operating for many years to come. So some of the
things we're doing is at our large powder plant sites
at clani boor Edendah and Tarapa. We're doing some work,

(02:14):
major maintenance work to appear the outside of those buildings
so that we can carry of making safe food inside.
And also decarbonization is really important to us, so we've
got some plans to exit coal in the South Holland
and we're in the process of installing our first twenty
mego electric baller down at Edendalfak.

Speaker 2 (02:33):
Gee. Absolutely amazing. You've got a lot of work on
your hands out and so I won't hold you up
any longer. Hey mate, thank you, thank you for joining
us on the show.

Speaker 1 (02:41):
Brilliant Thanks Brian.

Speaker 2 (02:42):
Busy time Aaron from Von Tira here on Gold Sport
The Country Sport Breakfast