Arla marks Lockerbie 50th

With a multi-year investment programme of more than £144 millions and new Centre of Excellence, the UK’s dairy cooperative celebrates 50 years since the opening of the Lockerbie site, in Scotland, which has now become one of the UK’s largest cheese making facilities.

Arla Lockerbie  has recently invested £34M to upgrade its cheddar facilities and will now expand the site with a Centre of Excellence for the production of UHT and lacto free milk in the UK. Arla’s Lockerbie site today takes in over 600 million litres of milk every year, producing around 200 million litres of fresh bottled milk and 42,000 tonnes of cheese—enough for approximately 840 million cheese sandwiches.

Arla has also nearly completed construction of a second anaerobic digestion (AD) plant at its creamery in Lockerbie, which will help to turn waste from whey permeate – a by-product from cheese making - into renewable energy by supplying bio-methane into the gas grid.

The existing AD plant can process up to 36,500 tonnes of whey permeate per year. At full capacity, it can generate around 30,500 MWh of gas annually – enough to heat more than 2,600 average UK homes – equivalent to supplying households across the town of Lockerbie.

The Scottish dairy sector valued at more than £560 million in 2024.