Australian dairy co-operative Devondale-Murray Goulburn (Devondale-MG) has announced a five-year agreement with Danone to supply 50,000 tonnes of Growing Up Milk Powders (GUMPs).

The co-operative processes one-third of Australia’s milk.

“Over the past three years, Devondale-MG has experienced strong and sustainable increases in demand for its ingredients from Danone’s nutrition division,” said Devondale-MG managing director Gary Helou, “driven by rising Asian demand for GUMPs, and nutritional powders. Partnering with Danone offers Devondale-MG a significant opportunity for growth in an important line of product for our co-operative. We are increasingly focusing on producing higher value and speciality ingredients such as GUMPs, as they provide higher margins and reduce our exposure to the more price volatile commodity products.”

The co-operative will make an AU$2.5 million investment in its Koroit plant to provide the additional value-add nutrition ingredients capacity.

According to Devondale-MG, GUMPs are one of the fastest growing dairy nutritional categories, increasing between 10 to 20 per cent each year. 

Devondale-MG began supplying GUMPs to Danone in Malaysia in July 2011 and Thailand in December 2012.