VION to Make Food and Ingredients Independent
VION is separating its two principal activities – food and ingredients. The company aims to achieve full operational, organisational and legal independence for Food (active in the Netherlands, Germanyand a number of export markets) and Ingredients (active globally).
The independent Food business will focus on improving financial performance through reorganisations in the Netherlands and Germany. A new (co)shareholder will be sought to help achieve further development and growth for Ingredients.
VION Food, with its slogan ‘Passion for Better Food’, focuses on the pork and beef markets in the Netherlands and Germany, making it close to consumers. The Netherlands, Germany and a number of select international markets are geographically aligned in such a way that they offer VION Food significant opportunities to achieve far-reaching operational integration, synergy and a considerably lower cost base. Food employs approximately 14,000 staff.
VION Ingredients, with its slogan ‘Improvement by Nature’, is active with a large number of companies which manufacture added-value products such as gelatine, proteins and fats from slaughterhouse by-products. These are successfully marketed to B2B markets such as the pharmaceutical, cosmetics, food, feed, energy and technology sectors. Ingredients employs approximately 6,000 staff.
The Board of VION and the shareholder have concluded that making Food and Ingredients independent is the best option. This strategy is partly based on the fact that the acquisitions and the increase in scale at Food over the past decade have not delivered the expected results. In addition, the ongoing poor market conditions, particularly in the European pork sector, have forced the company to make choices.
The independence of Food and Ingredients follows on from the divestment over the past six months of the food activities in the UK and the sale of a number of non-core business activities including Banner Pharmacaps (supplier to the pharmaceutical industry) and Oerlemans Foods (deep frozen vegetables and potato products).
