In January, the company announced plans to close two production facilities in Faaborg, Denmark and other initiatives as part of a restructuring of the company's pork-processing operations. Danish Crown's board of directors recommended ending production of ready meals at Tulip Faaborg and closing the deboning department at Danish Crown Faaborg.
“On 16 January we announced that the deboning activities at the Faaborg facility were too costly to remain in Denmark,” said Jesper Friis, CEO of DC Pork. “Back in January, we also said that production would be moved to Poland, Germany or the UK where Danish Crown already has a number of facilities, and we have now decided on the UK due to the synergies which can be realized with Tulip Ltd.”
The pork deboning facility in Faaborg will be moved to a Tulip facility in Bugle in a number of stages. Faaborg is due to close down completely during the first half of 2016. Tulip has 17 production facilities in the United Kingdom.
The Bugle facility was chosen primarily because a large proportion of Faaborg's production is currently destined for the UK market, according to Danish Crown. Additionally, Tulip was found to have surplus production capacity which the company believes can be put to good use. The Bugle facility is in a rural district where unemployment can be high. The UK Regional Development Fund is providing a grant of £4.8 million ($8 million) to help secure and grow jobs for the future, and 250 new jobs are expected to be created.
“Having made the decision, we can now start the transition, which will involve both investing in the facility in the UK and relocating equipment,” Friis said. “Consequently, we will also be rolling out the social plans in step with the inevitable redundancies.”
