Official authorization has been granted for the Netherlands-based Plukon Food Group to acquire a majority interest in the Wyrebski family’s poultry business in Poland, and to take over Duc of France.
In September 2016, Plukon announced its interest in a joint venture with Wyrebski, which would give the Dutch poultry giant interests in a fifth European market.
Commenting on the deal, which was officially closed this week, Plukon Food’s CEO, Peter Poortinga, announced that the two firms will jointly develop a new poultry slaughterhouse on a green-field site in central Poland.
According to the WATT World Top Poultry Companies rankings, last year, Plukon was Europe’s second largest poultry meat producer, processing around 354 million chickens and turkeys annually.
The Wyrebski business focuses on fresh and frozen poultry meat products for the food service, retail and further processing sectors in Poland and countries in north-west Europe.
Plukon’s acquisition of Duc approved
Just last month, Plukon’s offer to acquire French poultry company, Duc, received approval from both the competition authorities and the majority of Duc’s shareholders. This followed agreement in principle between the companies reached in December 2016.
As a result of the approvals, Plukon will become the full owner of Duc, and Poortinga has been appointed the French entity’s new managing director.
Plukon has agreed to maintain existing business arrangements with Duc’s poultry producers, and guarantee jobs for 800 of its employees for four years.
This latest expansion brings to 20 the number of Plukon’s operations, which include 10 slaughterhouses and seven further processing and packaging facilities in five countries (The Netherlands, Belgium, Germany, France and Poland).
