A.P. Moller – Maersk has entered into a three-year agreement with the food manufacturer Danish Crown for end-to-end logistics globally. The deal is effective from 1 October and constitutes the largest one on reefer logistics in Europe. The strategic partnership covers all Danish Crown’s business units, delivering solutions on ocean services, inland logistics and cold chain logistics.
The digital supply chain blockchain platform Tradelens, which has been developed by Maersk and IBM, is also a core part of the agreement.
Danish Crown Group is one of the world’s largest exporters, the number one supplier of pork in Europe and the largest meat-processing company in Europe, while the group’s trading company ESS-FOOD sells and distributes fresh and frozen foods worldwide.
In Denmark, the number of farms with pigs decreased overall in the past years and amounted to 2.9 thousand farms in 2020. This might be a result of Denmark having more and more large, modern and high-tech farms, on which farmers are able to breed many animals, instead of having many small farms with only a few animals. Despite the reduced number of farms, the number of pigs on Danish farms decreased only slightly and remained almost the same. As of 2020, there were roughly 13 million pigs on farms.
The breeding of pigs and production of pig meat has been a major industry in Denmark for a long time. Pig meat produced in Denmark is characterized by its high quality; pig farmers constantly try to improve the welfare of live pigs. Among the 13 million pigs living on farms in 2020, the number of pigs for slaughtering was approximately 3.1 million animals.
Today, Danish pork and bacon is popular worldwide, and Denmark is among the world’s largest pig meat exporters. Most of the domestically produced pig meat is for export, as international trade is essential for the Danish economy. The value of for example fresh or chilled pork exported from Denmark fluctuated over the past years and amounted to roughly 8.1 million Danish kroner in 2020.
Source: Container News