pitt&sherry delivers two milk processing plants for MGC

Murray Goulburn Co-operative (MGC) has engaged engineering consultancy pitt&sherry to design two state-of-the-art pasteurised milk processing plants as part of its $120 million development of two greenfield sites.

The facilities are expected to be commissioned by July 2014 and will each be capable of supplying up to 150 million litres of packaged milk annually.

pitt&sherry was approached by MGC to deliver this project following the successful outcome achieved at the Smithton Dairy Processing Facility in Tasmania. pitt&sherry met a rigorous design and development timeline at Smithton, turning the project around in just 14 months.

According to Andrew Buckley, pitt&sherry’s national leader Food & Beverage, the two MGC plants - located in Laverton, Victoria and Erskine Park, NSW - will also be delivered under tight time constraints.

“To aid this we have developed one above-ground design that will be duplicated on both sites,” said Buckley. “This not only reduces the design timeline, but also significantly reduces building construction time and cost.

“All project members have actively collaborated throughout the project to ensure the plants’ whole-of-life environmental, social and financial costs were considered.”

The plants will incorporate the latest processing technology to deliver the highest possible quality standards, pitt&sherry says. The flexible design will accommodate future expansion, is easily adaptable for the second site and is simple to disassemble at plant end-of-life.

“pitt&sherry has a longstanding relationship with MGC, including through the services of our RARE Consulting division, which worked with MGC to deliver one of the first large heavy vehicle fleets to use liquid natural gas as a diesel replacement,” Buckley said.

“The involvement in these two plants has further developed this relationship and established pitt&sherry as one of the major players in the dairy space.”