A DAIRY manufacturer in Newcastle Emlyn opened its doors to international trade when it welcomed customers from China and Hong Kong to Wales.

Dairy Partners welcomed 27 visitors to its Newcastle Emlyn site as part of a customer programme to strengthen international export relationships.

The team from Foodgears Industrial International Limited, which is headquartered in Hong Kong, was invited to tour the factory, including its new state-of-the-art mozzarella production line and newly-installed LNG energy tank, which is helping the company to cut its carbon emissions by 29 per cent a year.

A trip around a local farm then followed, allowing the visitors to see an automatic milking parlour and meet some of the farmers that supply milk to Dairy Partners for its manufacturing.

“We’ve been supplying our mozzarella product to Foodgears for three years and we were keen to find the right opportunity to host them here in Wales,” explained Will Bennett, director at Dairy Partners.

“We were able to welcome them as part of a wider tour across the Europe and it’s been a great weekend for export relations.

“Our business is built strongly on provenance and traceability and these values are shared by Foodgears. We have been able to demonstrate the measures we take to support local farming and share our passion for this first hand.

“This is the first trip that we have hosted for an international audience and it will be the first of many. Export is an important growth area for us and by hosting this trip we will be able to increase brand awareness with our customer base in China and throughout wider Asia.”

Independent and family owned Dairy Partners currently exports to 26 countries in North Africa, Middle East, Asia and EU.

Its direct milk supply contract with 120 farmers means that all milk used for manufacture comes from within a 50-mile radius of the site. Welsh farmers contribute 140 million litres of milk per year to the manufacturing of its dairy product and the company is now focusing on its target to more than double the milk supply contract to take 300 million litres by the end of 2020.