Construction of Brazilian biggest cheese plant will start soon in South of Brazil

Published 2021년 1월 5일

Construction of the biggest cheese plant in Brazil is about to start, and will have a processing capability of 2 million liters of milk a day, and shall focus on mozzarella cheese production along with milk bottling and butter production. The Brazilian 2020 milk segment finishes with a positive balance and the high prices is expected to continue as costs continue high.

New biggest cheese plant in Brazil

The company Piracanjuba from the conglomerate group Laticínes Bela Vista is finishing earth leveling works in the site of what is going to be the biggest and most technological cheese plant in Brazil. It is located in the city of São Jorge D’Oeste in the Southeast of Paraná State, in a land of more than 47 ha in size, and it will have an investment of more than the firstly anticipated BRL 80 million. The company has expanded its plan for the plant, which will now have two drying towers, a milk bottling facility, and a butter processing facility as well. The processing capacity will start with 600 thousand liters a day and it will achieve an impressive 2 million liters when it is fully operational. The announcement of the plant was made in July 2020, and the land preparations have started within days. The construction shall start as soon as the earth leveling works are completed. The main cheese that will be produced is the mozzarella cheese which will be destined for domestic and international markets.

Piracanjuba is within the top four Brazilian dairy industries with a history of more than 65 years in the segment with seven plants in Brazil located in Goiás, Minas Gerais, Santa Catarina, Paraná, São Paulo, Rio de Janeiro, and Rio Grande do Sul States, with a capacity of processing 6 million liters a day, and with the new plant, it will mean an increase of 33% in their processing capability.

Paraná State was chosen as the location for the new plant as being now the second biggest milk-producing region in Brazil with more than 4,5 billion liters produced in 2019 and the Southeast is their main production area with more than 1 billion liters of milk in 2019 becoming the second-largest dairy hubs in the country making it a strategic move to build a strong foothold in the region.

High milk prices shall continue in 2021

Total Brazilian milk production has achieved 35 billion liters in 2019 a YoY increase of 2% after decreases in 2015 to 2017 due to the global recession. 2020 had many ups and downs in the milk segment due to adversity of weather, the pandemic, high grain prices for feeding but also saw an unexpected increase in consumption of milk and dairy as the Brazilian government has paid Emergency Financial Assistance (EFA) and an increase in exports due to favorable exchange rates, which caused a record high in its price achieving an accumulated of 47.7% increase from January to November and a YoY mean increase of 16.4%. Due to the high demand, and high prices paid on farmgate prices, the year had a positive outcome to producers although it faced increases in costs. In 2021 it is expected that high costs shall sustain the high prices and with the recovery of Asian markets, the demand shall continue high although the Brazilian EFA which maintained the high demand domestically will be finalized by January if there are no future changes.