HAMPSHIRE milk will soon be on breakfast tables in Beijing and Shanghai.

Southampton-based dairy firm Pensworth has just sent its first shipment of UHT milk to China.

Pensworth MD Arthur Dunne is flying out to meet distributors in the Far East this week in a bid to gain a foothold in the rapidly growing Chinese market.

As the country’s prosperous middle class grows the Chinese are consuming more and more milk, far outstripping its production capacity.

In the first three months of the 2016 demand for milk in China has grown by 80 per cent from 64 million tonnes to 115 tonnes despite the downturn in the economy.

Currently Germany, France and Poland supply the vast bulk of the European milk exports to China with British products barely registering.

Pensworth want to change that and the firm’s financial director Michael Mitchell said: “The key to breaking into the market is establishing a strong brand.”

The company already exports to Malta and the Philippines and has plans to ship UHT to Vietnam, Malaya, the Maldives and Puerto Rico.

The firm is expanding fast at home and abroad and recently secured an £8.7m investment package from the Royal Bank of Scotland to help it continue an expansion programme.

In the last five years Pensworth has nearly doubled in size to a £45 million business through organic growth and acquisition.

It is now Britain’s eight largest supplier of liquid milk and sends out around a million pints a week from its HQ at Empress Road, where new £200,000 bottling line was installed recently.

The firm employs 250 staff – half of whom are based in Southampton.

Recent rapid growth of the business has been built on the back of a move away from supplying retailers in favour of hotels, restaurants, care homes, and hospitals.

Among Pensworth’s customers are Blenheim Palace, the Pump Room at Bath, Selfridges in Birmingham, the Barbican and the Gherkin in London.

In addition to milk and dairy Pensworth also supplies another 300 plus products including eggs, bacon and fruit juices, via its growing food services business which now accounts for 30 per cent of its turnover.

This is all a far cry from the firm’s roots on Pensworth Farm in Redlynch in 1975, when brothers Roger and Cliff Bishop and and George Jeffreys, who owned Newhouse Estate, started a 200-strong Friesian dairy herd.

In 1988 the partnership made the bold decision to leave the Milk Marketing Board and started their own on-farm milk processing and bottling operation.

In 2001 Pensworth acquired Vines Dairies in Southampton and since then the firm has gone on to open distribution depots in Kent, Essex, Sussex, South Wales and Norfolk. It also bought Brazier Dairies and Dairy farmers of Britain, based just outside London and in 2014 it acquired a 66 per cent stake of one Britain’s oldest dairies Kirby and West in Leicester.

Arthur Dunne says the firm plans to double the size of the business again over the next five years and will use Kirby and West as a jumping off point to gain a foothold in the north.

“Our focus is on growth and employment,” said Arthur.

He took over the firm in 2011 after a short period as a consultant. Prior to that Arthur, 61, had worked for industry giant Dairy Crest during which time he oversaw the purchase of several small provincial dairies.

“I liked the ethos of the company and it was a business that needed to change,” he said.