GEA, one of the well-known suppliers of processing technology for the global dairy and food industry, installs a high performance spray dryer as the centerpiece of the new milk powder plant in Lichfield, New Zealand. For its customer Fonterra, the company developed the best performing and the most efficient spray dryer currently available on the market. With the capacity of 30 tons of milk powder per hour, it can process nearly 4.4 million liters of milk per day. This volume corresponds to 165 truckloads. Fonterra started last year the production process, which is now being gradually expanded to round-the-clock operation. GEA was responsible for the complete turnkey milk powder plant and provided all of the processing technology - from acceptance of the tanker to evaporation, drying and powder handling to packaging. The GEA experts developed several innovations, which simplify the processes on site and reduce the total cost of ownership. In particular, energy efficiency was a key focus for the project team. For instance, the plant requires very little process water as the evaporator condensate is filtered through the membrane of a high-pressure reverse osmosis system and, because of the GEA technology, this water can be re-used during processing. As a result, Fonterra is required to maintain much less wastewater treatment capacity at the site. By focusing on overall equipment efficiency, energy consumption and waste minimization, the completed milk processing plant is one of the most efficient in the industry.