April 27, 2023

Danish Crown shuts down pork plant in Denmark

Danish Crown, a major European pork processor, has announced that it plans to close its swine slaughter plant in Saeby, Denmark, while restructuring other parts of its business, Meat + Poultry reported.

The company said that 800 jobs could be cut, while 450 new employees will be hired at facilities in Horsens, Ringsted, and Blans over the next six months.

Danish Crown's capacity exceeded its weekly swine supply each week, resulting in a 10% decrease in weekly swine slaughter over the last year.

With this information, the company's board of directors made the decision to close one of the company's six Danish facilities.

Per Laursen, vice president of production at Danish Crown, said the company's excess capacity costs them more than DKK 300 million (~US$44 million; DKK 1 = US$0.15) per year.

According to the pork processor, inflated pork prices forced the closure of some livestock operations. Other places are now selling swine for export in order to generate more revenue due to high demand in Poland and Germany.

To reverse this trend, Danish Crown said that it needed to raise the settlement price paid to cooperative owners for supplies to levels comparable to those paid in Germany.

Danish Crown also shut down a plant in Germany in January 2023.

-      Meat + Poultry