Hundreds of cases of the disease were confirmed in April and May, resulting in the culling of nearly 30 million birds. The EU brought in a number of restrictive measures in Germany, Belgium and the Netherlands, which suffered the worst of the crisis.
Pingo Poultry intends to concentrate its activities on the production of fresh poultry and poultry products for large supermarket chains in the Netherlands and Belgium. The current reorganisation, which will affect facilities based in the Netherlands, follows the restructuring in September 2003 of Pingo Poultry's Belgian activities.
The production location in Stevoort has since been closed and all Belgian activities are now concentrated in Maasmechelen. The Dutch headquarters of Pingo Poultry were also reorganised.
Pingo Poultry now plans to close the production location in Cuyk, while the activities in Mierlo (Brabant) will be expanded. The production in Goor (Overijssel) will be continued. Once these plans are completed, the company says that it will be in a position to employ around 1,040 employees at three production locations in Belgium and the Netherlands.
The total costs of the restructuring of the Dutch and Belgian activities, including asset write offs, are estimated to be around €14 million. The company says that these costs will fully materialise in the second half of 2003.
Nutreco is an international company operating at various stages of the fish, poultry and pork production chains. These activities are organised into two business streams, Nutreco Aquaculture and Nutreco Agriculture. Eight business groups, each comprising several business units, operate within these streams, incorporating more than 120 production and processing plants in 22 countries with approximately 13,000 employees.
Since its flotation in June 1997, Nutreco has made numerous acquisitions across the globe. Sales in 2002 were €3,809.6 million.