Fonterra has rented a big new warehouse just down the highway from its United States headquarters near Chicago's O'Hare Airport.

Fonterra has taken 46,500 square meters of space in the Heartland Corporate Center at Shorewood, 66km from Chicago and is expected to channel significant amounts of its billion-dollar exports to the US through the site.

The warehouse has been vacant for several years but its owner, ING Clarion, is installing a new security fence to meet conditions of a Partnership Against Terrorism Act that requires cargo handling areas for imported products to be protected.

"It's nice to get a huge client out there," said a Shorewood Village trustee, Gary Fitzgerald, who heads its planning committee. "The drought has ended," he told the Joliet Herald-News.

The warehouse was built in 2007 as the start of a projected 63ha business campus.

Fonterra is reported to have chosen the village of Shorewood for its warehousing because it has access ramps to a major highway, Interstate 55. Up to 20 trucks will enter and leave the site daily.

"If they want to start picking up the truck traffic, we planned for that," Mayor Richard Chapman told the newspaper.

Product will be shipped from New Zealand to US ports, and sent by rail to Chicago, which is considered a central point for US distribution.

Two years ago Fonterra USA opened a $4 million research and development site - its Chicago technical center - near O'Hare Airport, and moved its corporate headquarters to Rosemont, the suburb adjoining the airport.

The technical center’s processing equipment and sample analysis lab are planned to be developed into a major sensory application center to work directly with North American customers for dairy proteins and other ingredients, including HP Hood, Nestle and Unilever.

Fonterra USA is estimated to have a turnover of over $NZ1.4 billion from its imports of caseins, whey powders, proteins, protein concentrates, hydrolysates, cheese, cream products and milk powders.

Source: Stuff.com (New Zealand)

http://www.stuff.co.nz/business/farming/4077057/Fonterra-adds-warehouse-to-US-operation