RANDERS, Denmark – Danish Crown's board of directors has approved the final plans for building a new beef cattle slaughterhouse in the town of Holsted in the municipality of Vejen in Denmark following a 12-month analysis. The company’s board of directors approved an investment of approximately $88,257,480 for this new facility. Staffing the slaughterhouse will result in 300 new jobs.

However, as a result building the new facility, Danish Crown will be closing cattle slaughterhouses in Tønder and Holstebro, and the deboning departments in Skjern and Fårvang will move to the new slaughterhouse. The existing head office in Herning will also move to the new premises. Four-hundred employees in DC Beef will be affected by the new slaughterhouse.

Being billed as the biggest single investment in the Danish cattle sector, this will be the first large cattle slaughterhouse to be established in Denmark for almost four decades. Danish Crown executives said the new slaughterhouse will be built on state-of-the-art principles that will optimize quality-control procedures, including better utilization of by-products and ultimately, better meat quality.

“We have for several years reaped the benefits of investing in a top modern slaughterhouse in the Pork Division, and when looking at the upward trend in production costs in the Danish slaughterhouse industry, we have to be at the technological forefront to be competitive,” said Lorenz Hansen, division director of DC Beef. “The new cattle slaughterhouse will secure us that position. We also ensure that we create the highest possible value from our raw materials as well as make the most of the energy and other resources available.”

The slaughterhouse is expected to begin operating early in 2014, but DC Beef plans to relocate its head office to the new premises in the fall of 2013.