Located in the Waikato—the home of Kiwi dairy farming—and proud to be part of the NZ Inc. story—BODCO Dairy supplies global markets with high quality nutritional and lifestyle milk powder-based products. Founded in 2014 by Brian Wagstaff , Ole Andersen and Richard (Dick) Young and later joined by one of China’s largest State Owned Enterprise, The China Animal Husbandry Group, BODCO Dairy’s Te Rapa blending and canning plant has been designed and constructed as a state-of-the-art pharmaceutical grade dairy manufacturing facility. Incorporating quality assurance and product tracing measures, BODCO Dairy provides complete transparency over the manufacturing process, exceeding world class food safety standards and customer confidence. Along with the manufacture of its own customised milk formula products BODCO Dairy also manufactures product under contract for other brands, offering third party companies the advantage of customized, low production runs when needed. BODCO’s technical capability, flexibility and ability to innovate and customise products through its blending processes enables value to be added the product and is a real point of difference. “There are a lot of regulatory requirements you have to meet to get into different markets and every customer is different,” explains Scott Warren BODCO’s Account Manager. “The customer could be looking for a formula that targets immunity, eye care, bone health or a brain food—it could be a wide range of things the customer is trying to achieve in their milk powder product.
“Our technical team works with the customer to tailor a product that’s going to work for their region or demographic. It’s about meeting the needs of the customer. “There’s a team of people who are constantly working on changes, enhancements and innovations, working with our customers and really focusing on the end quality.” BODCO’s CEO Nic Wetere explains that it’s about being at the forefront of innovation and identifying the next big thing, and that is all about the ingredients BODCO blends to achieve the final product. “The immune system coming out of Covid is going to be huge—so what ingredients can we add to tell the story and make it a unique selling point for NZ Inc.? Ninety percent of ingredients used to customise our products come from New Zealand suppliers, so we really want to tell that NZ Inc. story.” Nic makes the point that the regulations around infant formula are stringent, ensuring whatever goes into the product is declared and signed off as being fit for infant consumption. As part of BODCO’s evolution, the plant’s machinery was recommercialised during the latter quarter of 2019 effectively replacing the original canning lines and doubling capability from 4 million cans a year to 8 million cans. “Our cans range from 400gms to 900gms,” says Scott. “A fair percentage of our business will always be cans because that’s where the infant formula market is, but we’re diversifying our capability and commercialised a new sachet line for stand-up 1kg pouches. “We’re about to commercialise another sachet line that will get us into the single serve 30gm entity.” BODCO’s diversification strategy will also see more formulas produced from sheep and goat milk powders. While bovine powders will continue to be predominant, BODCO commenced contract manufacturing for goat milk powders two months ago. Currently more than 90% of the product is exported to China, but BODCO Dairy’s next phase is to expand into new markets including the Asian and the Middle East regions. “We don’t view our product as a commodity,” says Nic. “We’re sending a premium product overseas, further adding value to the Kiwi Inc brand and that is keeping New Zealanders in jobs and upskilling them into highly technical and sought-after roles.