Danish Crown decided to close the slaughterhouse in Saeby
At an extraordinary meeting last week, Danish Crown's board of directors made the difficult decision to close the slaughterhouse in Saeby. The number of pigs for slaughter in Denmark has fallen by more than 10 percent on a weekly basis in the past year, and therefore Danish Crown has the capacity to slaughter far more pigs than are delivered to the group's slaughterhouses each week. Therefore, the board unfortunately sees no other option than to recommend one of the group's six pig slaughterhouses in Denmark for closure.
"It is sad that we have to say goodbye to so many skilled and loyal employees, but such a sharp decline in the number of slaughters forces us to react. We are currently faced with an excess capacity that costs us over DKK 300 million (1 DKK = 0,13 EUR) annually, and it would be irresponsible towards the company and our owners not to take the necessary steps to solve that challenge", says Per Laursen, production director at Danish Crown.
Even though the prices of pig meat in the supermarkets' refrigerated counters have increased in the past year, inflation has made it difficult for many Danish farmers to obtain healthy finances in the production of fattening pigs. Therefore, some of them have chosen to close their stables. Others now sell their pigs for export when they weigh around 30 kilos, because the demand for Danish piglets from Poland and Germany is so great that it gives the farmers a reasonable income. All in all, this means that the number of pigs sent to slaughter in Denmark has fallen significantly.
If that development is to be reversed, and employment is secured for the employees at the five other slaughterhouses in Denmark, Danish Crown must be able to raise its settlement for the unit owners' deliveries of pigs, so that it both matches the level in Germany and ensures that the farmer earns money from fattening the pigs up for slaughter.
"The frustrating thing in the current situation is that the employees have constantly delivered an exemplary effort, but in our industry it is such that it is absolutely crucial that the slaughterhouses operate with a very high utilization of capacity, otherwise it will simply be too expensive to slaughtered every single pig, but that does not change the fact that it is a difficult decision", says Per Laursen.
While 800 employees stand to lose their jobs in Sæby, Danish Crown expects to hire up to 450 new employees in total at the slaughterhouses in Horsens, Ringsted and Blans near Sønderborg within the next six months. This is because part of the production that currently takes place in Saeby will in future take place at Danish Crown's other slaughterhouses.
"After several years of upswing for our owners, driven by a large export to China, we knew that there was a risk that the production of fattening pigs could fall, so behind the decision to close the slaughterhouse in Saeby is a careful and thorough analysis of the situation. However, our Feeding the Future strategy is unchanged, because our future growth must not be created by slaughtering more pigs, but by raising the value of our meat and through the production of attractive and more sustainable food", says Jais Valeur, Group CEO of Danish Crown .
It is Danish Crown's hope that there are employees from the slaughterhouse in Saeby who want to take a job at one of the three slaughterhouses that are now hiring. Danish Crown is therefore ready to bear part of the costs for transport for a period of time or to provide a subsidy for relocation.
In addition, the company will, through a coordinated effort, try to help the employees who are about to lose their jobs. Each of the affected employees will be invited to an interview to clarify his or her possibilities for employment at one of Danish Crown's other companies. Alternatively, the employees will be offered various options for courses and training paid for by Danish Crown, which can help them to a job in another company.
"Many of our employees will be left with a feeling that they have had the rug pulled away from their working lives. That is why we are already contacting the Food Federation NNF, Frederikshavn Municipality and Region North Jutland, so that we can jointly do the most we can to help them. Fortunately, slaughterhouse workers are known as a stable and reliable workforce, and after the redundancies in Saeby six months ago, almost 60 percent have moved on, but this does not happen by itself", says Per Laursen.
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