As part of the move, the firm has set a target to reduce costs by DKK350m this financial year, which will involve 300–400 redundancies.
The business said that its earnings were still being challenged by problems at its UK business, Tulip, as well as under-performance in some other business units.
In November 2018, Danish Crown named Tulip as the primary reason for its drop in profits, which decreased by DKK151m compared to its profits in 2016/17. Danish Crown announced 150 immediate job losses, plus a DKK200m savings programme for Tulip Ltd in the 2018/19 financial year.
Danish Crown CEO Jais Valeur said the business was implementing the measures now to keep them on track to achieve the budgeted profit for the year.
“We’re maintaining the hiring freeze initiated in November 2018, as well as a freeze on the use of consultants for the time being and, while investment in the business continues, we are in the process of identifying projects that could be postponed,” said Valeur.
“In recent months, we have won several important contracts in the UK, so in terms of sales, things are moving in the right direction. Right now, we don’t have the competitiveness that we’re striving to achieve compared to the EU index. This is primarily due to the particular challenges we’re facing in the UK, but the tough battle for pigs in Germany, and the advance of the Spanish abattoirs is not helping either. At the same time, we are faced with the fundamental challenge that costs in Denmark are significantly higher than in the countries we compete with. Therefore, all parts of our business must deliver in order to ensure competitive prices for our owners.”
Following the job cuts, Danish Crown has 29,000 employees globally, of which 9,000 are situated in Denmark and 7,000 in UK.
Danish Crown added that it was considering further reductions across the group to improve operational efficiencies at Tulip.