Nortura, Norway’s dominant farmer-owned cooperative for meat, poultry and eggs, has launched a cost-cutting program that also will cut 300 jobs over the next three years. Nortura issued a warning this week that it expects weaker results for 2017.
A looming restructuring program at Nortura, which has around 5,500 employees nationwide, “will affect so many of our employees that we had a need to go out and warn about the weaker results, to show how this is necessary,” its chief executive Arne Kristian Kolberg told newspaper Dagens Næringsliv (DN).
He aims to cut costs by around NOK 500 million at the cooperative that markets meat under the Gilde brand, poultry and eggs under the Prior brand and other products under the Terina, Thulefjord, Joika and Alfathi brands.
Nortura is owned by around 18,800 farmers who also stand to receive lower payments this year. Kenneth Johansen, who represents employees at Nortura, blamed the pending cuts on an “extremely demanding business with strong competition and pressure on prices from customers and the market.” Meat, chicken and eggs, however, remain much more expensive in Norway than in other countries, with eggs selling at more than USD 5 per dozen and two skinned chicken breasts costing nearly USD 8. Beef often costs more than NOK 400 per kilo, or around USD 24 per pound.
newsinenglish.no staff
