Valio sheds ice cream and baby food

FINLAND – Valio is planning to sell both its ice cream business and baby foods business this summer.

The ice cream business will go to Nestle and the baby food business Netherlands-based Royal Numico. The deals are part of a programme aimed at concentrating Valio’s efforts on its core business.

Announcing the moves, Valio CEO Harry Salonaho said that ice cream just did not have enough synergy with other dairy production as far as his company was concerned. He added that baby food items would still be manufactured by Valio under contract to Numico, with the two companies probably also co-operating in future baby food research and development.

Last year Valio achieved over 90% of its €1.6 billion group turnover from core business such as fresh dairy products (40%), cheese (29%) and milk fats (13%). In 2003 the Valio Group processed almost two billion litres of milk, including over 80% of all milk produced in Finland, where it has 15 plants. It also has two plants in Estonia and one in Belgium.

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