Dairy products and juice manufacturer Clover on Tuesday launched its R40-million visitors centre at its factory in Clayville, Midrand – the first such centre in the South African dairy industry.

The facility, which took three years to complete, will be open to the public from February 2017.

CEO Johann Vorster told Engineering News Online during a tour of the centre that it had been an “engineering challenge”.

“With the visitors centre you feel part of the factory, even if you are not in the factory,” he said by way of explanation.

Vorster noted that the benefits of dairy products, especially for children, were a subject the visitors centre dealt with.

“The centre allows guests to experience Clover’s milk and beverage bottling and packaging facility through educational tours to groups of between 20 and 40 people, twice a day, four days a week,” he outlined.

Vorster stated that the facility was designed with an emphasis on sustainability, reflected by the company’s low water and electricity use.

“Clover’s continuous improvement approach seeks to further improve on these statistics continuously,” he said.

He pointed out that the Clayville facility was one of the group’s major hubs for both dairy and beverage manufacturing and employed 1 600 people.

In addition to the visitors centre, the complex comprises a manufacturing facility, warehouse facility and a distribution centre.

The distribution centre supplies all Clover’s inland branches and supports the biggest cross-dock facility in South Africa with the company’s City Deep hub.

“Over R170-million was spent on key projects over the past few years including projects such as site infrastructure improvements and new access entrances,” Vorster said.

The manufacturing facility packs South African fruit mix brand Tropika and Clover fresh milk. Other products include yoghurt-based drink Danao, fresh cream, sour cream and juices, Clover Nectar and Clover Krush.

“Around 60-million litres of Tropika are packaged and 80-million litres of fresh milk are processed here every year, equating to 2 500 tankers of milk a year,” he said.

The Clover visitors centre will be run by Professor Elain Vlok who heads up Clover’s corporate services division and champions the company’s corporate social investment programme – the Clover Mama Africa project.