FrieslandCampina reorganises cheese operations

All FrieslandCampina retail supplies of cheese on the Dutch domestic market are now controlled by daughter company Zijerveld which incorporates Bouter Kaas, K.H. De Jong, Bontje Kaas and Bomeka. The aim, reports FrieslandCampina, is to establish a cluster of cheese companies with its own separate management capable of working without continual recourse to company head office in Amersfoort.

FrieslandCampina, with a turnover in the last year of €10.3 billion and 20,000 of a staff worldwide, also recently sold its processed cheese producing company in France, Société Industrielle Fromagère (SAS) based in Charmoille. Taking over this €4 million turnover dairy is Austrian cheese maker Rupp that reports that the aim is to increase processed cheese production at the location.

Family firm Rupp is already a major producer of processed cheese including internationally marketed traditional Alpine cheese products under the Enzian label. Rupp, cheesemakers for over 100 years now, was actually the first dairy to start making Swiss-type Emmental cheese in Austria and by the 1920s had developed into a major exporter of the cheese, primarily to the USA. In the 30s the Hörbranz-based dairy started processed cheese production.