Hünfeld, 21 March 2016. The dairy company Hochwald has inaugurated one of the most modern production facilities in Europe for the production of demineralised whey powder. From its new production plant in the Hessian city of Hünfeld, Hochwald supplies the baby and infant food industry worldwide. Lucia Puttrich, the Hessian Minister for Federal and European Affairs, as well as local political representatives, took part in the solemn inauguration ceremony. With the symbolic handover of a key, Hochwald’s managing directors, Karl Eismann and Detlef Latka, opened the new production plant. In the presence of representatives of the city of Hünfeld, as well as customers and suppliers, the official start-up and commissioning of production was celebrated with the guests of honour. Since the start of the project, €90 million has been invested in the Hünfeld site with the drying plant, in the expansion of the cheese plant and in a new industrial wastewater treatment plant. A plant for the production of skimmed milk concentrate, which also supplies the baby and infant food industry, was installed in parallel at the Hochwald site in the Hessian city of Hungen. In total, Hochwald in Hesse employs approximately 460 members of staff and about 1,400 milk producers supply its Hessian locations with milk. The new plant processes the whey from the Hochwald cheese plant into a high-quality precursor of baby and infant food with state-of-the-art technology. The desalinated whey concentrate is supplied to the food processing industry either as a liquid or dried in powder form. The Minister, Lucia Puttrich, said: “It was a good decision by Hochwald to invest here in Hünfeld. A lot has to come together so that ideas can be turned into innovative concepts and marketable products. One requirement is motivated employees with a good education. Another is a solid financial, technical and logistical infrastructure to enable sustainable production and a well-functioning sales structure. We have a lot to offer here in Hesse.” Detlef Latka, Chief Financial Officer of Hochwald, said: “The decision to open up a new field of business for Hochwald to provide more added value with this plant was absolutely the right one. The future of our company does not lie in the commodity sector but, given the poor market situation, in further processing and thus higher in the value-added chain.”