Arla Aylesbury
It is owned by Arla Foods UK which is a subsidiary of Arla Foods, a large producer of dairy products in Scandinavia.
History
The UK dairy industry is worth around £3.7bn.
Construction
The first investment proposal for the dairy came in November 2009. Planning permission was submitted in September 2011. Construction started in February 2012, by Caddick Construction.
The plant was officially opened on 28 May 2014, with Åke Hantoft, the Chairman of Arla Foods, in attendance.
Visits
The site was shown on BBC Two on 7 May 2015, where Gregg Wallace met the 'milk robots'.
Incidents
Around 30 protesters from Animal Rebellion on 31 August 2021 visited the plant. The Impossible Rebellion protest was, by total coincidence, not during university term time, when middle-class humanities students would have many available weeks free. 8 protestors were arrested, and appeared at High Wycombe magistrates on 21 July 2022, but were acquitted, as no provable damage had taken place.
Production
It can process up to 420,000 pints (240,000 litres) of milk per hour. Arla Foods UK processes 6.1 billion pints (3.5 billion of litres) of milk per year, turning over £2.2bn. It has eight processing lines, with eight bottle sizes. Around 900 farmers supply milk to the site; Arla UK represents around 2,800 British dairy farmers.
It produces about five bottles per second and makes around 400 deliveries from the site each day. In despatch, all the milk is transported by robots - it is the only dairy in the UK like this, working with RFID technology. Without robots, it would require around 300 workers in despatch. Around 30% of UK dairy farms have robotic systems.
Arla in the UK makes around 43% of Britain's butter.
Structure
It is situated north of the A41 in Aylesbury Vale, and between this to the south and the Aylesbury Arm of the Grand Union Canal to the north. The total site is 70 acres.
See also
- CCE Wakefield, Europe's largest soft drinks factory, in West Yorkshire
- Davidstow Creamery, in Cornwall