Germany-headquartered Toennies plans to build a slaughterhouse in north-east Spain as speculation surfaced last week the family-owned meat major may be put on the market.
Toennies, which suffered Covid-19 outbreaks at some of its factories in Germany last year, is to construct the pork plant in Calamocha located in the autonomous community district in Aragon, with the project expected to create up to 1,000 jobs, Javier Lambán, the president of the region, announced in a statement last week.
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The company had not responded to a request for comment at the time of writing today (22 March) and did not reply to just-food’s enquiry last week on a media report suggesting the group planned to approach global meat peers Tyson Foods, Brazil’s JBS and China’s WH Group for a possible takeover.
Meanwhile, Lambán said the new EUR75m (US$89.4m) Toennies project is expected to be completed in 2024 capable of slaughtering 10,000 animals a day, equal to 2.4m animals a year. The company already operates a slaughterhouse in Spain, located in La Mata de los Olmos, Terwel, which is also in Aragon, he said.
Toennies will occupy about 30 hectares of land around a 70-hectare site established by the Aragon authorities in an “agri-food logistics centre” in the city.
Work on the new centre and Toennies plant is expected to begin in September or October once any environmental impacts have been assessed.
Headquartered in Rheda-Wiedenbrück in the East Westphalia part of Germany, Toennies generated a turnover of EUR7.3bn in 2019 across pork and beef products, with around half of its production going to export, according to the company’s website.
