Danish Crown Shifts Some Domestic Production to Tulip UK
The board of directors of Danish Crown has approved the plan to move production from international meat group’s Faaborg site in Denmark to one of Tulip UK’s production facilities in Cornwall, England.
Danish Crown subsidiary Tulip has 17 production facilities in the UK, several of which are sited in Cornwall. The production in Faaborg will be moved to the facility in Bugle in a number of stages, and as announced earlier, Faaborg is due to close down completely during the first half of 2016.
“On 16 January we announced that the deboning activities at the Faaborg facility were too costly to remain in Denmark. Back in January, we also said that production would be moved to Poland, Germany or the UK where Danish Crown already has a number of facilities, and we have now decided on the UK due to the synergies which can be realised with Tulip Ltd,” Jesper Friis, chief executive of Danish Crown Pork.
He continues: “Having made the decision, we can now start the transition, which will involve both investing in the facility in the UK and relocating equipment. Consequently, we will also be rolling out the social plans in step with the inevitable redundancies.”
The UK was chosen primarily because a large proportion of Faaborg’s production is currently destined for the UK market. Moreover, Tulip was found to have surplus capacity which can be put to good use in this way.
”The UK production will need some minor restructuring, but then we will be able to secure the future of the site,” explains Flemming Enevoldsen, chief executive of Danish Crown’s processing companies.
The Bugle facility is situated in a rural district where unemployment levels can be high. Consequently the UK Regional Development Fund is providing a grant of £4.8 million over a period to help secure and grow jobs for the future, and 250 new jobs are expected to be created as a result of this.
The restructuring will involve close co-operation between Danish Crown Group and Tulip.
Danish Crown is the world’s second largest, and Europe’s largest, pig slaughtering business. It is also Denmark’s largest cattle slaughterhouse business and the world’s largest exporter of pork.
