Arla Flies In New Team For UK Dairy Challenge
UK - Arla Foods has overhauled its leadership in the UK as it looks to make a fresh start and improve earnings for its dairy operations in the country.
27 April 2007
1 minute read
Peter Lauritzen, who has headed Arla's ingredients unit for the last 13 years, will be the new chief executive of UK operations. His predecessor, Tim Smith, left by "mutual consent", the group announced this week.
Lauritzen's appointment is the first major change since Arla Foods' took direct control of its UK arm earlier in the year, and indicates the group is keen to shake things up to raise its performance in the country.
A series of investments and efficiency improvements will consume most of Lauritzen's first few weeks in the job, Arla said this week.
He is already credited with turning Arla's loss-making business in Saudi Arabia into an expansive Middle East dairy division between 1985 and 1992. More recently, he has successfully expanded Arla's milk powder division.
Now comes the UK, in what Lauritzen said was "a very exciting challenge for me to have been offered the opportunity to head up the large-scale integration process and structural development that is ahead". Precise details of the restructuring plan remained unclear.
