Main facts
Founded in 1965
>700 employees
Cooperatively owned
Processes milk from 1200 dairy farmers in Ireland
Processes 596 million litres milk per year
Produces 12 million litres of bioethanol per year
Main products
- Cheese
- Whey
- Flavoring ingredients
- Bioethanol from whey
- Biogas from process residues
Overall business idea
- Cascading use of dairy feedstock business model through biorefining
- Biorefinery produces cheese, whey and flavouring ingredients
- Residual lactose stream converted to ethanol for alcohol, chemical and biofuel markets
- Ethanol residues processed to produce biogas with energy used on site
Key characteristics of the success story
-
Cascading use of biomaterials
- Circulation of nutrients
- Technological innovation: technological push/market pull
- Early adopter of new technologies and concepts
- Cooperative business model – farmers benefit from sale of products
- Location – local, geographical proximity
- Rural job creation and upskilling
- Sustainable land use creating resilient and carbon neutral farms
Plans for development
The Farm Zero C-initiative is targeting the world´s first climate-neutral and net-zero emissions dairy farm. The next steps include the implementation of the biorefining concept at farm level through conversion of fresh grass into value-added products including cattle feed fiber, protein concentrate for monogastric, prebiotics and grass whey for fertilizer or bioenergy.
Type of organisation: Organisation of primary producers/cooperative
