Ornua Acquires CoreFX Ingredients, Expands Production in US

03 Nov 2016 --- Ornua, Ireland’s largest exporter of Irish dairy products, have announced the acquisition of CoreFX Ingredients division of MCT Dairies, Inc. and the opening of a new powder ingredient production facility in Orangeville, Illinois. The acquisition, which has been made in partnership with Denis Neville, formerly of MCT Dairies, is Ornua’s first specialty dry ingredients production facility in the US.

The newly named business, CoreFX Ingredients LLC, complements Ornua’s existing ingredients production facilities in Saudi Arabia, Spain, the UK and the US, delivering scale and shared dairy technologies.

Headquartered in Chicago, CoreFX Ingredients uses spray drying and dry blending technologies to produce a range of dairy, cheese and lipid powder ingredient solutions for US food manufacturing and foodservice customers. It serves a wide range of markets including snack foods, sports nutrition, soups/sauces and dressings, infant & toddler nutrition, desserts, bakery and dairy.

Core to the business is the ability to design ingredients specific to customer requirements across a range of properties including taste, melt point, texture, mouth feel, cost and shelf stability.

Jeanne Kelly Ornua's Head of Corporate Communications told FoodIngredientsFirst that Ornua acquired CoreFX for around $5 million. “The acquisition of CoreFX further reinforces Ornua's presence in the important US market,” she explains.

“It is fully in line with Ornua's strategic objective of developing a broad based, global, value added dairy business that helps deliver sustainable returns to Irish dairy farmers. CoreFX has a strong position in the US dairy ingredients market, a valuable customer base and innovative technology that can be harnessed in our other ingredients businesses located in a range of key international markets,” says Kelly.

Ornua plans to further increase the scale and capability of the CoreFX Ingredients business through customer-led innovation, dairy technologies and its team expertise. It is investing in the development of the production facility’s technical capabilities and in a Customer Innovation Centre at its Chicago headquarters.

Kevin Lane, Ornua CEO welcomed CoreFX Ingredients to the Ornua Group and said: “This acquisition is another key milestone in Ornua’s US expansion program and is in-line with our strategy to invest in high growth and profitable dairy businesses. CoreFX Ingredients will provide our Ingredients division with greater scale and enhances our capability to deliver bespoke ingredient solutions to our customers. Importantly, we can share its dairy technologies across all of our ingredient operations around the world and in turn drive growth.”

Newly appointed CoreFX Ingredients CEO, Denis Neville also commented: “This investment affords the CoreFX Ingredients business the opportunity to grow through the addition of technologies, infrastructure and people. I am excited to build on the platform for entrepreneurial growth that we started just a few years ago with MCT Dairies. The support of an international dairy company of Ornua’s reputation and track record will help enormously with our growth plans.”

by Elizabeth Kenward

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