The company said an increasing demand for yogurt products from European consumers and a lack of expansion options at Brabrand Dairy means the site will close in mid 2019, with production moving to other sites.
Brabrand Dairy produces fermented milk products such as yogurt, skyr and crème fraiche. Production of these products will mostly be redistributed to sites in Denmark, Holland, and Germany.
Increase in yogurt production
Jakob Bernhard Knudsen, senior vice president and head of Arla Danmark said European consumers are buying more and more yogurt products, and Arla needs to look at how it can secure future production capacity and ensure yogurt products of a high quality across the European countries.
“As we cannot expand production at Brabrand Dairy because of the location and costs of production equipment, we are moving production to competence centers at primarily Danish, Dutch and German production sites," Knudsen said.
The bulk of Danish brand production from Brabrand will move to the Slagelse and Hobro dairies in Denmark.
Some smaller products requiring special packaging will be moved to Sweden and Germany.
"The aim is to create production sites that are experts within the individual products, both in terms of production and development," Knudsen said.
Employment options
Arla said a plan will be prepared together with trade unions and the production site's liaison committee to ensure the 160 employees are given good terms – both if they choose to stay until the production site closes in 2019 and for their future careers.
Knudsen said the company wanted to help employees to either stay with Arla at other sites, or find jobs outside of Arla.
"I am pleased that we can maintain and develop more jobs at the Danish production sites, which will take over production from Brabrand Dairy," he added.