DENMARK – Arla Foods, the largest producer of dairy products in Scandinavia plans to cut 140 roles as part of its cost saving initiative it launched in April this year.

According to FoodBev, the new redundancies will take place across the company’s Marketing, Supply Chain Finance, International and HR units, predominantly at the company’s head office in Aarhus, Denmark.

Additionally, the cost-cutting initiative may affect smaller number of positions at the company’s administrative offices elsewhere in Europe and North America.

The company said the majority of cuts will take place in Arla’s marketing organisation, as the company aims to simplify its commercial matrix and empower the frontline by securing a higher speed to market.

“The changes we are announcing today will create a simpler and stronger marketing model for our brands, allowing us to faster address local needs both in our European core markets and our newer markets in Asia and Africa.

“It is part of our effort to build close relationships with local customers and governments in addressing some of the bigger challenges around health and sustainability,” said CEO of Arla Foods, Peder Tuborgh.

“As always when you restructure and have to part ways with skilled colleagues, we have been confronted with some tough decisions.

I would like to thank those people who are leaving us for the contribution they have made to Arla Foods.

“We are doing this to create a long-term transformation of our company and to reinstate our international competitiveness when it comes to the milk price we pay to our farmers, and I am pleased to see the level of engagement that Calcium is sparking throughout our organisation.

“It is a big part of the reason why the programme is currently delivering ahead of schedule.”

The European dairy cooperative launched the ‘Calcium’ cost-saving programme with an aim to deliver more than 400 million euro (US$456m) of savings by the end of 2020 through improved efficiency in all areas of the company.

As part of the cost-saving programme, Arla announced it was closing several of its UK sites and restructure its corporate group functions.

This saw it cut 195 corporate roles its finance, legal & IT, corporate strategy, member relations, HR and corporate affairs departments.