Fleming Enevoldsen was a big deal at Danish Crown: he acted as group executive vice president for close to a decade and was in charge of the UK business Tulip since 2012. But a number of run-ins with the rest of Danish Crown’s top brass resulted in his dramatic resignation this week.
Enevoldsen and the board failed to see eye-to-eye on how to address the company’s declining competitiveness in the UK pork industry - a key market for the company.
‘Confidence’ in UK pork
“We have over a period [of time] witnessed that we are losing competitiveness in this important market, where we are involved in both slaughtering, sales of fresh meat and processed products, said Danish Crown’s chairman Erik Bredholt in a company statement. “As a group we can not accept this development to continue [sic].”
The statement said the company recognised there was a “strategic disagreement” with Enevoldsen and the board over how the challenges in the UK pork market should be addressed moving forwards.
Through its subsidiary Tulip, Danish Crown is responsible for 5,900 UK jobs across 15 production sites and the company still has a “great confidence” in the market.
It’s a market that has proved to be particularly fruitful for Danish Crown too after it posted DKK11.7bn (£1.2bn) in turnover for its last full-year trading report. The company expects “substantial positive earnings” for Tulip during the current financial year.