Farmers in the northern half of the North Island who supply Fonterra are relieved to be back to normal this week, after last week's forced dumping.
Fifteen of Fonterra's processing plants in Waikato, Bay of Plenty and Northland were put out of action for one or two days when the Maui pipeline supplying gas out of Taranaki was shut down to repair a leak.
Fonterra estimates its farmers had to dump more than 50 million litres of milk that could not be collected and processed at plants that use gas for heating.
Its milk processing plants were all back in operation by the end of the week and it has been able to pick up all the milk waiting in farm vats.
Federated Farmers dairy vice-chairman Robin Barkla, one of many forced to spill milk into effluent ponds, says with milk production still running at peak levels, farmers are relieved to see the tankers coming up the track again.
He says the period of disruption turned out to be relatively short.
Mr Barkla says Fonterra managed the situation well by spreading the pick-ups so farmers were affected relatively equally.
He says Fonterra also did a good job keeping farmers informed with text messages and information on its Fencepost website.
