Danish Crown has decided to close its deboning department and its subsidiary Tulip food’s ready meals production in Faaborg due to non-competitiveness in the current production set-up and as part of its comprehensive structural plan to safeguard its future.
These closures affect about 470 employees, of which over 60 are employed in Tulip Food.
As part of the plan, the Denmark-based food processor will implement a range of initiatives to ensure that production in the country remains competitive apart from modifying its slaughtering capacity.
Moreover, capacity at the group's Danish pig slaughterhouses will be adjusted.
Danish Crown group CEO Kjeld Johannesen said, "We have spent the past few months turning every stone to find out how we can responsibly solve the current challenge of surplus capacity while simultaneously keeping a close eye on costs in our Danish production."
The company intends to begin discussions with the employees and other stakeholders at the slaughterhouses in Skrbk and on Bornholm on a more sustainable cost structure.
DC Pork CEO Jesper Friis said that Danish Crown has the capacity to slaughter more pigs than the numbers being delivered to the slaughterhouses, and this is not tenable.
"It is no secret that the slaughterhouse on Bornholm has been in our sights for some time because, at the end of the day, each kilogramme of meat we produce on the island costs considerably more than elsewhere," Friis added.
The capacity adjustments may affect about 350 employees at several production facilities.