This morning, Danish Crown’s Pork Producer Committee has announced that some of the Group’s Danish activities will be closed. The announcement involves the slaughterhouse in Holstebro and the cutting facility in Rødding. The closures will affect 463 DC employees in Holstebro and 308 DC employees in Rødding. It also affects 90 employees in Esbjerg in the shoulder deboning department, which is expected to be closed in the first week of May. Holstebro is expected to close in the second week of June, and Rødding in the course of 2009.

Uncertainty about the conditions for producing pigs for slaughter is behind the decision to close several of Danish Crown’s facilities.

Lack of raw materials
There are a number of factors behind the closures, among others the falling volume of raw materials being supplied to the slaughterhouse. Uncertain framework conditions for primary production and the company – including a lack of environmental approvals, significantly higher veterinary costs and uncertainty about the Danish Tax Commission’s proposals – create, together with the economic slowdown and high Danish cost levels, a need to adjust capacity in Danish Crown. - We are still hoping for improved market conditions and a willingness to head off the politically created challenges, and therefore we have initially decided to close Holstebro with the option of reopening the slaughterhouse within the first year. This is the only economically responsible thing we can do, says Danish Crown’s CEO, Kjeld Johannesen.

Preserving workplaces
The latest pig count at the beginning of 2009 indicates a further fall in the production of pigs for slaughter, and the now very uncertain economic situation is forcing Danish Crown to take the next step to ensure its competitiveness. Part of the production in Rødding is being moved to the department in Esbjerg, from where some of the production will be ‘flagged out’ to Germany. Thus, Danish Crown expects to be able to preserve about a quarter of the affected workplaces.