Ornua, an Irish exporter of dairy products, announced it has acquired the CoreFX Ingredients division of MCT Dairies, Inc. and a powder ingredient production facility in Orangeville, Ill. The acquisition, which has been made in partnership with Denis Neville, formerly of MCT Dairies, is Ornua’s first specialty dry ingredients production facility in the US. The newly named business, CoreFX Ingredients LLC, complements Ornua’s existing ingredients production facilities in the US, UK, Spain and Saudi Arabia, delivering scale and shared dairy technologies.

Headquartered in Chicago, CoreFX Ingredients uses spray-drying and dry-blending technologies to produce a range of dairy, cheese and lipid powder ingredient solutions for US food manufacturing and foodservice customers. It serves a wide range of markets, including snack foods, sports nutrition, soups/sauces and dressings, infant and toddler nutrition, desserts, bakery and dairy. Central to the business is the ability to design ingredients specific to customer requirements across a range of properties, including taste, melt point, texture, mouth feel, cost and shelf stability.

Ornua plans to further increase the scale and capability of the CoreFX Ingredients business through customer-led innovation, dairy technologies and its team expertise. It is investing in the development of the production facility’s technical capabilities and in a Customer Innovation Center at its Chicago headquarters.

Kevin Lane, Ornua CEO, welcomed CoreFX Ingredients to the Ornua Group and said: “This acquisition is another key milestone in Ornua’s US expansion program and is in line with our strategy to invest in high-growth and profitable dairy businesses. CoreFX Ingredients will provide our Ingredients Division with greater scale and will enhance our capability to deliver customized ingredient solutions to our customers. Importantly, we can share its dairy technologies across all of our ingredient operations around the world and, in turn, drive growth.”

Neville, who is CoreFX’s newly appointed CEO, said: “This investment affords the CoreFX Ingredients business the opportunity to grow through the addition of technologies, infrastructure and people. I am excited to build on the platform for entrepreneurial growth that we started just a few years ago with MCT Dairies. The support of an international dairy company of Ornua’s reputation and track record will help enormously with our growth plans.”