Lactalis South Africa appoints Jill de Kock as its new Quality Executive
SOUTH AFRICA – Lactalis South Africa (LSA), one of the major players in the South African dairy industry has promoted Jill de Kock to be its new Quality Executive.
Jill has been with the business for more than 15 years and has vast experience in production and quality, indicated LSA on a linked post announcing her appointment.
Her most recent position at the company was Head of Quality, while her previous positions include Quality Manager, Production Manager, and Plant Manager.
The dairy processor was previously known as Parmalat South Africa and renamed early last year in February 2020.
Parmalat SA had been part of the global Lactalis Group since its acquisition in 2011, and the name change was the final step towards fully integrating the South African business with its international parent company.
According to the company, the move was just a name change only and Lactalis SA remains home to quality and trusted brands such as Parmalat, Melrose, Président, SteriStumpie, Bonnita, PureJoy, Galbani, and Aylesbury.
Lactalis South Africa was previously known as Parmalat South Africa but renamed in February 2020.
These familiar brands hold strong positions across several dairy product categories, ranging from cheese, yoghurt, milk, and custard, to flavoured milk, cream, drinking yoghurt, maas, fruit beverages, butter and ice cream.
The Lactalis Group is a family-led company founded in 1933 by André Besnier in Laval in the west of France, the heart of French dairy country.
It is one of the world’s leading dairy groups with 250 production sites in 50 countries and more than 90,000 team members in 94 countries.
According to Rabobank’s 2020 listing of top 20 global dairies, the company was number two with turnover of US$21bn, closely following Nestle with turnover of US$22.1bn.
Nestlé’s parring of its US$1.8bn US-based ice cream business, along with other assets (some of which were acquired by Lactalis), resulted in a significant narrowing in the gap between the top two global dairy companies.
In 2018 the gap between the companies was US$3.5bn and in 2019 it is US$1.1bn.
Meanwhile, the Managing Director Lactalis India, Rahul Kumar has called for government intervention to reduce rising stocks of milk products due to low demand caused by the Covid-19 pandemic.
Writing in a blog post, Kumar has said that the rise in milk supply and a reduced demand for milk products has led to mounting inventories of Skimmed Milk Powder (SMP) and butter in the country, which require government intervention to support the dairy sector.
To help offset the huge stocks, Kumar has called for the government to spend up to US$ 400 million in export subsidies and for the country’s dairy board to spend some of this cash to buy buffer stocks from processors to enable them continue sourcing milk from farmers across the country.
India continues to be the largest producer of milk in the world and is likely to retain its prime position with an annual growth rate of 5.5% during the last three to four years.
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