Faced with a number of challenges, local dairy company Moogoodies is shifting to concentrating on primary production instead of value-added processing, until some measure of viability returns to the local dairy manufacturing sector.
Contacted yesterday, Managing Director of Moogoodies Timothy McIntosh said that for the past year or so, his company has been finding it difficult to acquire the quantities of milk required for its processing operations, thus the shift.
McIntosh said that because milk prices on the world market increased during this time, demand for local milk shot up and left diary processors “high and dry”.
He said because businesses all over were taking a beating, the company still had outstanding monies to collect from businesses and individuals. He said the company was in a stage of transitioning, but remained hopeful that with the right support, processing could be resumed.
McIntosh said the company would remain at its location at the St Stanislaus Farm in Sophia and would seek to undertake a training component. He said too that the company would seek to retain its few employees in the difficult time being faced.
Moogoodies has had recent meetings with the National Dairy Development Board (NDDB) and Minister of Agriculture Robert Persaud with a view to coming up with avenues that would allow the company to get back on its feet. McIntosh said the minister has been very supportive.
Contacted, Persaud noted the constraints the company faced and said the ministry was looking at ways of assisting. He said the ministry had offered support for Moogoodies to expand its processing operations.
Moogoodies opened in 2003 and produced full cream milk, flavoured milk, cheese, cream cheese and yogurt.
During last year, Moogoodies delivered milk to hotels and fast-food joints as well as residences. In early 2005, Moogoodies took over the management of the Goodmorning Dairy Plant in Sophia, located at the St Stanislaus farm. It began managing the Goodmorning plant on a five-year lease agreement with options to extend after this period.
Up to last July, Moogoodies was processing 80 gallons of milk daily, down from 120 gallons daily in April 2005. Back then, McIntosh had told this newspaper of plans of pushing production up to 200 gallons daily.
Moogoodies has had a number of resource interventions over the years and in April 2005 received the services of two United Nations Volunteers (UNV) employees of Kraft Food Company, who assisted the company to improve its cheese-processing techniques. The company had in its product line-up, mozzarella and cream cheese.
Meanwhile, cattle farmers have been urged to take advantage of the opportunities existing for increased milk production in the light of the world market situation.
The minister at a recent meeting with farmers and other ministry officials said stakeholders needed to discuss the challenges of attaining and maintaining high quality and standards in the diary manufacturing process.
