Meat group Danish Crown has restructured its “core business” into three distinct units to “create a more efficient structure”.
The co-op has divided its Danish Crown Business Unit into Danish Crown Industry, Danish Crown Foods and Danish Crown UK.
In a statement issued on Friday (4 April), the company said it was aiming to “ensure full focus on value creation and regain competitiveness in the pig market”.
CEO Niels Duedahl, who took over the role in September from Jais Valeur, said: “We must ensure a sharp focus on value creation.”
He added each of the three new units “must generate earnings that can be passed on to the owners”.
The restructuring comes after Danish Crown conducted a “thorough analysis,” which determined that the 2021 merger of its Pork and Foods divisions was “not working as intended”.
Duedahl said: “Instead of continuing to spend resources on a complex integration, we choose to make a division.”
The company said Danish Crown Industry will oversee the operation of pig slaughterhouses and sales to industrial customers.
The unit will employ approximately 5,200 employees and generate a turnover of around DKr17bn ($2.5bn).
Danish Crown Foods will look after the sales and production of fresh and processed products for retail and foodservice customers.
Employing around 3,000 staff, this division has a turnover of around DKr13bn.
Danish Crown UK will function as a standalone unit with approximately 1,000 employees and a turnover of DKr4bn.
The company, which owns the Tulip brand, said the UK arm can “best be developed” with a “strong and local management” team dedicated to efficiently running local production sites and consistently serving customers across the region.
Each of the three business units will operate under separate leadership and will be evaluated independently based on their own performance, Duedahl explained.
During the transition period, Duedahl will serve as interim CEO for all three units, while the company searches for permanent managing directors.
He believes the new structure will give each business unit a “much sharper focus, stronger management power and clarity on where and how they can and should create profit”.
Despite the internal split, the company confirmed that for accounting and external communication purposes, the divisions will continue to be referred to collectively as Danish Crown.
The Danish Crown Group now comprises eight business units: Danish Crown Industry, Danish Crown Foods, Danish Crown Beef, Danish Crown UK, DAT-Schaub, ESS-FOOD, KLS, and Sokolow.
In February, the group announced it would cease operations at its processed meat factory in Pinghu, China.
Located near Shanghai and opened in 2019, the site was put up for sale in January.
