TINE Ireland Ltd – a subsidiary of the Norwegian dairy cooperative TINE – has awarded the construction of a new Jarlsberg® cheese production facility and administration building at Mogeely, Co. Cork, to BAM Ireland.

The contract value is more than €25 million. TINE is Norway’s largest producer, distributor and exporter of dairy products, owned by 10,478 (2017) farmers.

Jarlsberg® is a mild cow’s-milk cheese with large regular holes, that originates from Norway, but which is also produced abroad under licenses from Norwegian dairy producers. The location of the proposed building is on a greenfield site adjoining the existing Dairygold Mogeely site. The new facility has an estimated capacity of 14,000T of cheese per annum.

Construction works will start this month. BAM Ireland expects to hand-over the project to TINE in November 2019. There is a significant volume of earthworks required in order to prepare the site for building foundations. The structure will be a steelwork frame with long spanning trusses (up to 35 metre) and will be clad with Kingspan insulated panels.

The plant includes warm rooms and cool rooms for the different phases of cheese maturing and flavour development. These contain super flat floors for forklift access. Also provided is a brine room with gantry crane. Specialist equipment includes mould presses and vats for the production of curd and whey.