Gebroeders Fuite is closing its Beernink slaughterhouse in Oldenzaal. The last calves for FuiteVeal were slaughtered there on Friday 28 March. The company decided to close because the capacity of the former Gosschalk slaughterhouse is now sufficient to meet demand.
"The closure had been in place since the takeover of gosschalk in the planning," Klaas Kuiper, responsible for planning the slaughters, told Boerenbusiness. The capacity of the company is redundant according to the planner, since Fuite has more than enough capacity for the company. Keeping both locations open was simply not lucrative, according to Kuiper. At the location, a maximum of 1.500 calves were slaughtered per week.
At the end of 2023, Fuite took over the large cattle slaughterhouse Gosschalk in Epe. This takeover followed after Gosschalk was dragged into the bankruptcy of the Danish company Skare Meat Packers. Skare got into financial trouble when it turned out that the administration of their stocks was not in order, which meant that the company could no longer pay its major customers. With the takeover, Fuite acquired a fully-fledged, large-scale slaughterhouse. Before the purchase, Gosschalk had an annual turnover of approximately €200 million.
Overcapacity
Fuite bought the Beernink slaughterhouse in 2021 to slaughter rosé calves. It was the second slaughter location acquired by the company, which originally specialized in animal feed. History seems to be repeating itself. Five years earlier, Fuite had already bought a slaughterhouse in Tubbergen. This location was closed in 2020 due to its limited capacity and its location close to a residential area.