Danish Crown plans to cut 400 jobs

Global meat processing company Danish Crown is reportedly planning to cut nearly 400 jobs across the group to make savings of €47m.

Most of the job cuts would occur at its UK business, Tulip,  as well as some other business units that are underperforming. There will be significantly less impact on employees in Denmark.

In November 2018, Danish Crown cited Tulip as one of the reasons for the dip in its earnings, which declined by DKK151m compared with its profits in 2016-17.  In the financial year for 2018-19, Danish Crown plans to axe 150 jobs in addition to a DKK200m savings programme for Tulip.

The company initiated a hiring freeze in November 2018 and is currently identifying projects that could be postponed

Danish Crown CEO Jais Valeur said: “In recent months, we have won several important contracts in the UK, so in terms of sales, things are moving in the right direction. Right now, we don’t have the competitiveness that we’re striving to achieve compared to the EU index.

“This is primarily due to the particular challenges we’re facing in the UK, but the tough battle for pigs in Germany, and the advance of the Spanish abattoirs is not helping either. At the same time, we are faced with the fundamental challenge that costs in Denmark are significantly higher than in the countries we compete with.”

Currently, the Danish firm has nearly 29,000 employees globally. Of these employees, 9,000 work in Denmark and 7,000 in the UK.

In November 2018, Danish Crown signed an approximately €300m supply agreement with Alibaba’s Win-Chain.

As per the agreement, Danish Crown has to supply 250t of pork from its processing facility in China for a period of five years.