Danish Crown’s Polish business, Sokołów, will now breed more Danish pigs. This will increase the value of the cooperative owners’ slaughter pigs.
It is not new that Danish pork is being sent to Poland. But in the coming months, a larger portion of the raw materials from Danish Crown’s shareholders will be processed in Sokołów, the group’s Polish business.
Specifically, Danish Crown plans to send raw materials equivalent to around 500,000 pigs per year to Sokołów, and in the longer term the ambition is to double that number.
Sokołów produces, among other things, cold cuts, sausages and pâtés for Polish consumers and has a processing degree of more than 70 percent, which is the highest in the Danish Crown group.
For Przemek Gostkiewicz, EVP and CEO of Sokołów, the initiative is a good example of how Danish Crown can create more value from the pigs delivered by the unit owners, while at the same time strengthening the group’s earnings.
“It’s good for Danish Crown as a whole. We get more raw materials from our shareholders, while at the same time we make better use of both the capacity and expertise at Sokołów. Instead of buying the raw materials externally, we can focus more on processing and sales,” he says.
It is primarily forequarters and hams that will be sent to Sokołów in larger quantities in the future. The middle pieces will remain in Denmark, where Danish Crown already has a strong position and can create high value.
