Danish Crown guaranteed price ends in failure

Despite an attempt by Danish Crown to keep more pigs in Denmark with a guaranteed price, the slaughterhouse is forced to close 1 slaughter location. The reason: there is too little supply to keep the employees at work.

According to Per Laursen, director of Danish Crown Denmark, the decision is insurmountable. Danish Crown launched in May 2017 a guaranteed price around export of live fattening pigs to go to Germany. The company promised a guaranteed price that is no less than €0,08 per kilo above the European comparison price (basket of European quotations). This guaranteed price is valid until 2021.

However, this decision did not yield the desired result. The supply did increase by 2017% from October 2, but the slaughterhouse had expected more than 5%.

Downtrend stopped
The slaughter location in Ringsted (Denmark), which has capacity for 11.500 slaughters per week, will be closed from 1 June. The 140 employees will be on the street. Half receive a proposal to continue as on-call workers until September. Despite this decision, Danish Crown is optimistic about the future, as the downward trend probably not going through in slaughter.

Wouter Job

Wouter Baan is editor-in-chief of Boerenbusiness. He also focuses on dairy, pig and meat markets. He also follows (business) developments within agribusiness and interviews CEOs and policymakers.

w.baan@boerenbusiness. Nl

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