Outdated creamery 'will never compete' (From Western Telegraph)

Outdated creamery 'will never compete'

Campaigners who once argued a compelling case for re-opening Whitland's mothballed creamery admit the plant could now never compete commercially with the new state-of-the art processing factory at Westbury.

Before Dairy Crest closed the Whitland factory, it was processing milk into powder for the skimmed milk market.

That process was costing 4p a litre - double the current cost of production at United Milk's ultra-modern Westbury Creamery.

Dairy Crest has never agreed to re-open or sell the site. It has now been argued that the factory could never be commercially viable in today's dairy industry.

Whitland dairy farmer Dai Davies, who is current vice-president of the NFU in Wales, has long argued the case for increasing processing capacity in this important milk field. But he now concedes that the mothballed factory would be outdated and uncompetitive. Machinery has gradually been removed from the site and little of the original plant remains.

"It is quite sad because we have got no major plants in the heartland of this milk producing area,'' said Mr Davies.

"There are, of course, the factories at Haverfordwest and Newcastle Emlyn, but the industry needs a facility near the centre of the west Wales milk field which, from a geographic point of view, is at Llanboidy.''

It has been suggested that Dairy Crest might consider selling the Whitland site if sufficient grants were made available, to upgrade its factory at Merlins Bridge, Haverfordwest.

"If Haverfordwest was brought up to scratch there could well be a case for selling Whitland,'' said Mr Davies.

Pictured: the mothballed Whitland creamery would struggle to compete in today's market place. PICTURE: Western Telegraph(WTNO934H03).